The Incredible Adventures of Service Drone Bob!
by Rasputin Zero
Summary: I think you can guess from the title. Used to be a serial story for wormbaby.com, so explaining the "to be contunued"s.
1. Becoming One with the Stars (Literally)

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part One: Becoming one with the stars (literally)  
  
"It was so good for the Tallest to give me my own battleship!"  
  
"mmpphh?"  
  
"I finally have a shot at tank commander! I really wnat to blow things up! Now, to send this thing somewhere..."  
  
"mmpphhmmph"  
  
"That's funny. The controls are locked."  
  
"mph!"  
  
"Oh well, I guess it's locked on auto-pilot until I leave the system or...something"  
  
"mmmphmm!"  
  
"I can already smell the fear of my enemies as I rain doom on them!"  
  
"MMPPPHH!!"  
  
"No longer will the universe take Zim for granted! Soon victory shall be MINE!"  
  
"mph...pfft...THE SUN! THE SUN!! WE'RE FALLING INTO THE SUUUUNNN!!!!"  
  
"What the...?" uttered Zim in surprise. He had just been granted his first meaty piece of war equipment for some time and now some joker had found his way aboard to spoil his fun. Stupid hitch-hikers. He left the seat and looked round the back, where he found, to his astonishment, possibly the smallest Irken he had ever seen. He was tied to the chair and had some violently chewed off duck-tape attached to his face. He was white with fear.  
  
"Th...the..th..th..SUN! SUN! THERE! SUN!" He uttered. His words were lost on Zim. He was pre-occupied with the possibility of using this incredible war machine on some poor unsuspecting people. Who these people were was irrelevent to him, so long as they were scared of HIM. In Zim's mind, all he saw was himself, standing victorious against all enemies. In the poor little Irken he saw in front of him, all he saw was a glory-hogger.  
  
"Look, I don't know what you think you're doing but this is my ship!" said a disgusted Zim, "I won't have someone sneaking aboard and stealing it from me! How you got tied up 'n all is a bit of a mystery, but we'll sort it out in due course, as soon as I chuck you out an airlock!"  
  
"WE'RE FALLING INTO A STAR YOU DELUSIONAL RETARD!" the Irken screamed, "look behind you!" Zim couldn't help but look, after all, what could the Irken do? He was tied up. In the screen on the other side of the main bridge, he saw a blazing globe of gases, fusing and boiling, and the course they were heading was plotted electronically, straight into it's centre. Zim gulped.  
  
"I knew it! You booby-trapped this ship somehow! Trying to ruin the hour of glory for ZIM!" Zim accused, "no, wait. That can't be right, you're still onboard, and tied up. Sooo...you must have tried to sabotage my ship, but someone else beat you to it! Well, top marks for trying."  
  
"I don't care about your stupid ship, just GET ME OUT OF HERE!!" the Irken shouted.  
  
"Right! Right," Zim looked at the screen, a mass of Irken symbols signifying...things, "we have around ten minutes before we enter the sun's atmosphere. Whoever did this probably did something about the escape pods..."  
  
"Actually, the escape pods are an integrated part of the ship's infrastructure, they can't just jettison them," said the small Irken, demonstrating an unexpected grasp of starship design, "all they probably did was lock them down. I might be able to bypass it if you let me out of this rope."  
  
"Are you suggesting I let you go? Do you really think you can fool Zim this way!?" asked Zim.  
  
"IT'S THAT OR GET BURNED TO A CRISP, MORON!" yelled the smaller Irken. Momentarily shocked, Zim relented and cut the Irken loose with a spider leg from his pak. The Irken immediately rushed to another corner of a bridge next to a door labeled in Irken 'go on! run like a chicken! I dares ya! bwaaakbwakbwakbwaaak!' and tore off a panel, revealing a morass of wiring.  
  
"Are you a mechanic or something?" asked Zim.  
  
"Actually, I was until recently a table-headed service drone," answered the Irken.  
  
"Yet you know a lot about machinery?" enquired Zim.  
  
"Heh, it's a hobby," responded the Irken, a spark from the panel signifying that he had succeeded, "now we can...HEY!" In the space of a few seconds Zim had rushed through the open door, closed it, and was now making raspberries as the escape pod drifted away from the ship and jetted away. The Irken was not pleased.  
  
"NO! NO NO NO NO NONONONONONOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" the Irken was banging desperately against the window of the pod, as if his anger might have somehow made the pod come back. Warning claxons had started going off and the outer hull was just beginning to burn up. The Irken, tears rolling down his face, yelling all kinds of expletives at the window, decided to head-butt the door just for effect. In his state of mind the impact was harder than his future health would have appreciated. He stumbled onto the ground, disorieted, and finally everything went to black...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	2. Debris

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Two: Debris  
  
There was nothing but black. It was at this moment that the Irken knew that he was dead. There was no other explanation, he was falling into a sun and the only escape pod had been jettisoned, and it's very hard to find an alternative when you're unconscious. But it was at this point that doubts entered into his mind. If he was dead, why was he still capable of rational thought? And why does he have some conception of the passing of time, when that shouldn't really exist when you're brain-dead? If everything is black, and he wasn't dead, then there must be something stopping him from seeing things.  
  
Wake up, you idiot.  
  
The Irken awoke. His vision was hazy at first, but he didn't honestly care. He was alive, and since this had to be more than 10 minutes since last he had consciousness, that meant the danger had passed and he was safe. As his vision came back to him, he made a mental note to think beyond the short term.  
  
"What d'you know. A service drone!" exclaimed the apparation in front of him, his vision was still blurred but what he could make out did not fill him with confidence. If he was right, the figure in front of him was a salvager, a space traveller whose sole reason of existence was to feed off the misfortune of others. Salvagers were normally stout and well-muscled, since salvaging involved a lot of heavy lifting, and since most tasks in the Irken Empire were normally the reserve of machines and service drones like himself, this tended to make them stick out in a crowd.  
  
"Mommy...I don't feel like going to school today...I feel all deep-fried..." said the Irken, as the previous thought had yet to spread itself to every section of his brain.  
  
"Ha ha! Take a look at this Blik! Lil' scrub here's a momma's boy!" said the salvager without much subtlety.  
  
"We can't sell him on delirious, Flik!" reasoned Blik, a slimmer, taller Irken and transparently the brains behind the operation, "fix it!"  
  
"All-right!" grumbled Flik, slapping the tiny Irken violently across the face, "WAKE UP YOU LAZY ASSHOLE!"  
  
"No need to shout..." the smaller Irken whimpered, now regaining full consciousness, "now, what happened to me? I thought I was burned to a crisp..."  
  
"Your ship bounced off the surface of Draconis B, but it suffered severe damage in the process. It fell to pieces right after we got you off it," Blik explained, "how a service drone found it's way onto an Irken battleship is anyone's guess, but that is one hefty piece of equipment that will probably make our fortunes, and I'd like to know how you got on it. What's your name?"  
  
"Bob," said, well, Bob, "how I got on that ship is a long story but it features loan sharks, or the fact that I don't have any. I was strapped into a battleship and sent hurtling into the sun."  
  
"In a Draedalus-class Battlecruiser?" Blik reasoned, "there are very few people in the universe with the power and influence to dispose of their enemies in a first-rate piece of military hardware. That means you must mean something to somebody high up."  
  
"Uhhh..." Bob stammered. He didn't want to reveal that he knew the Tallest, even if he only served drinks for them. Being the enemy of the rulers of a thousand-light-year-wide empire does not immediately suggest 'please help me'. He needed something convincing and he needed it quickly. "The people were the orionese mafia! They were going to send me to a cheaper ship around the sun but they...forgot...or something." Good job.  
  
"Only the Tallest have the resources to get that ship. That means you're wanted. You're damaged goods," said Blik, ominously, "if we can't sell you as you are, then we're gonna have to find some other means to get some cash from you."  
  
"WE'RE GONNA CUT YER'UP REAL GOOD!" shouted Flik, unable to contain his excitement.  
  
"WHAT!" yelled Bob, definitely not happy.  
  
"Oh, yeah, before your gruesome horrible death, do you take an iron-rich diet?" asked Blik, "'cos that raises the asking price for digestive systems yer'see..."  
  
Flik was starting up a surgical buzzsaw, as Bob was paralyzed in complete and utter fear...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	3. Organ Transplant

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Three: Organ Transplant  
  
Bob is currently numb from sheer unutterable terror. He would be screaming but his terror, being unutterable, is so far beyond the point of screaming that any meagre shriek would probably never do it justice. The reason for this state of horrendously overdosed fear is the spinning, incredibly sharp instrument of horrible screaming death that's slowly gravitating towards him, supervised by a dangerously sadistic redneck and his coldly intelligent cousin.  
  
"Where should we sell his organs at?" inquired Flik, he of the red neck (though, being Irken it's more a shade of tourqouise).  
  
"Can we concentrate on the matter of actually GETTING his organs in the first place?" retorted Blik, the tall, thin, distinctly brainier one, which if anything made him more dangerous than the tourquoise-neck, "It's YOUR job to handle the physical stuff and MY job to worry about the money. We discussed this in MUTUALLY AGREED lines of control in this scavenging business."  
  
"What?" muttered Flik, his forehead burrowed in an effort to understand, "I thought we agreed to share the responsibility when it came to both physical AND mental labour. We drew up a contract about it!" Huh, he's smarter than he looks.  
  
"No, we drew up the agreement on the basis of which jobs we were good at..." started Blik.  
  
"No you didn't! We started this business EQUALLY! All this 'physical and mental division' crap was something you made up as an excuse NOT TO DO ANY WORK!" retorted Flik. Creative tensions seemed to be running away. Bob momentarily screamed as his terror levels dropped down through that particular stage.  
  
"You were never any good at the thinking side of the business!" argued Blik, "We both AGREED on that..."  
  
"No, no we didn't! You're playing mind games on me again, you've been doing that ever since we were kids you have!" replied Flik. With the salvaging business apparently collapsing under internal pressures, Bob took the oppurtunity to inspect his restraints. They were of the type that you could unlock yourself if you had the right flexibility. When you're as small as Bob, you can be the most flexible person in the universe.  
  
"You were stupid!" Blik was still arguing, "You still are stupid! Remember what it was like when you were doing the bookeeping? You had to use the calculator every time! That wouldn't be so bad, but all you did was go up to me, ask for a calculator, do one sum, give it back, move on to the next one, go up to me, ask for the calculator again, FOR ALL ETERNITY! And then, some 3 hours later, you go up to me and ask how the calculator works! If that isn't stupid, I don't know what is!"  
  
"Well you never did much on MY side of the business, DIDJA!" Flik argued back, "As soon as you picked up ONE barnacle-pickin' crate, you start moanin' and whingin' 'bout 'oh how heavy this is, oh we should get a fork lift or summit, oh I should rest for five minutes' AND YOU HADN'T EVEN LEFT THE HANGER YET! This business stands or falls on how much you can carry, and if you can't carry 3 ounces of salt on the smallest of Irk's moons then MAYBE you shouldn't be running this business anymore!"  
  
"Oh, trust you to resort to the whole 'I'm stronger than you, so I'm automatically a better leader than you'," retorted Blik, "There is more to leadership than brute force, you neanderthal! There is intelligence, skill...ummm...height. Actually yeah! I'm taller than you! That means you have to do anything I say. And you can start by catching that Service Drone who's DISAPPEARING DOWN THAT VENTILATION DUCT!"  
  
Sure enough, Bob had escaped his restraints and was clambering manically through a host of wiring and other such unpleasantries. He crouched and ducked and threw himself over large gaps until eventually he found himself face down on one of the ship's many portholes. Recovering himself, he found it was the door to one of the ship's many cargo transport pods, built to land on the nearest planet with the ship's cargo if the ship ever found itself in trouble. It was just like a salvage captain to place the safety of his livelihood before his actual person. It was already full of scrap, so it would be a tight squeeze. And it didn't have a life support system so the thing was useless unless real close to a planet.  
  
"APPROACHING SIRIUS MINOR. ENGAGING ORBITAL TRAJECTORY." It was the ship's computer, heralding yet another of those helpful coincidences that always happens in fan-fics. Bob was about to climb into the pod and hit the eject switch when he looked across and noticed that he was right below the ship's central computer core. An evil thought entered into Bob's head.  
  
Elsewhere on the ship, things had settled down. Well, not so much settled down as gently simmered under the surface, ready to explode at any moment. Blik and Flik were facing away from each other, they could no longer stand the sight of each other. Blik was furious, but it had been locked in that state for so long now that it seemed indistinguishable from his normal moods. To keep his mind occupied with something other than slaughtering Flik, he let his attention wander to the viewscreen, showing the planet of Sirius Minor getting uncomfortably close. Raising an eyebrow, he checked the computer's orbital route, and let out a surprised squeak.  
  
"That horrible Service Drone!" exclaimed Blik, "Flik! Get to the computer! That Service Drone must have sabotaged it somehow!"  
  
"I'm not going anywhere," Flik announced with some finality. This made Blik more than a little uncomfortable, as a warning light had started flashing red.  
  
"But Fliiiik, we're in deep trouble..." Blik reasoned. A klaxon had started going off on the lower levels.  
  
"Don't try to get me with that old tale, I'm going on strike!" said Flik, apparently oblivious to the row of warning lights that had just turned red and the klaxon that had gone off upstairs, "I can't take this kind of treatment anymore."  
  
"Strike? YOU CAN'T GO ON STRIKE!" Blik said desperately, a klaxon had now gone off on the bridge, and most of the dashboard was flashing red, along with a big sign that had popped up saying 'do something stupid!', "We're falling into that planet! We're going to die! YOU CANNOT GO ON STRIKE WHEN WE'RE ABOUT TO DIE!!"  
  
"Just watch me," said Flik. By this time several of the instruments had started malfunctioning out of the effort to tell the two pilots that something was going horribly wrong. The outside had started to heat up, and licks of flame were starting to appear on the tips of the ship. Blik dropped to his knees and started begging, but by then he was too late. The bridge was falling apart around him, the controls had fused under the heat and were already disintegrating, and Flik remained implaceable. The ship was now aflame, and bits were breaking off. By the time Flik realised his mistake, he was already burnt out, blackened carcass, along with his business partner, and the ship was collapsing in and crushing their charred remains into a sticky goop.  
  
Next to the streaming ball of flame was another flame, this time absorbed into the craft. It was small and rounded, and full of scrap. Inside, you could see a small, crouched Irken, his eyes screwed shut and his mouth wide open, emitting a scream inaudible over the sound of the craft re-entering, desperately hoping that the landing didn't crush his charred remains into a sticky goop as well.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	4. Who Put This Desert Here?

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Four: Who put this desert here?  
  
Sirius Minor is a desert planet. Well that's not STRICTLY true, as there are CO2-saturated wastes and cold collections of dust much more deserving of the name 'desert planet' than Sirius Minor is. And then not all of Sirius Minor is a desert, in fact it covers less than half the planet. But if you ask any self-respecting space traveller what kind of planet Sirius Minor is, chances are they're going to say 'desert planet'. There's just so MUCH of it.  
  
Service Drone Bob was not what you'd call a self-respecting space traveller, but he'd have to agree with them. Although at the moment he couldn't really tell either way, as he was staggering blindly, recovering from the impact of the massive hulk of metal gently bubbling beside him. He was lucky he survived at all, as much of the scrap that had travelled with him had fused together into a gelatinous goop. Though if you told him that, he might politely request that you keep it down, as he was feeling a bit concussed at the moment.  
  
He felt exhausted from the landing, but he got over it just long enough to become exhausted from the heat. Squinting his eyes under the shade of his hand, he tried to get his bearings. He saw a settlement some miles from the crash site while he was landing, but since he had his eyes screwed shut in terror he couldn't really make out what direction it was in. Taking his best guess, he strode forth into the endless dunes.  
  
The heat got to him almost immediately. Irk was a cold planet by galactic standards (it wasn't an ice world or anything, but it was still a good few notches below 'temperate') and it's indigineous races had evolved in accordance to the fact that the surrounding environment was pretty chilly. Bob was particularly susceptible to this, since he had spent his entire life on Irk or the Massive, serving drinks and snack foods to his social betters. He hated his life with every ounce of spite in his body, but that didn't escape the fact that a life anywhere else wouldn't be especially easy for someone as attuned to only one type of climate as him.  
  
He walked for miles, never seeming to get anywhere and desperate for SOME sort of hydration to keep away the blistering heat. His thoughts turned towards decapitating the Tallest and a good segment of the ruling hierarchy, and eventually to killing himself. Since he realised these thoughts weren't very productive, he tried turning towards good memories. He had to admit there weren't many. If your entire life was doomed to fast food preparation, you'd probably feel the same way. But in a lifetime of pain, sorrow, and soda pop, there was one sole light of gratification to in there. There was Lenn.  
  
Lenn was a fellow Service Drone, who worked with him in Irk's premier fried-gruumlak establishment, KFG Irk. The building itself was in that haze that appears in your memory signposted 'best left forgotten', but he could remember every detail of her. The skin, paler green than usual, dark purple oval eyes with eyelashes stretching out at provocative lengths, and antennae full of exciting, angular curls. Their first meeting was bumping into each other on the mopping floor, they apologized, they smiled, they laughed, they both got pay suspension for enjoyment of subjects other than corporate logos, they were an item.  
  
That's good Bob, quit while you're ahead.  
  
Lenn and him spent as much time as they could together. Whenever there was some threat of being split up, he broke into the computer system and made sure they were assigned to the same place. It was risky, but that's love for you. They had their own activities, their own songs, their own meeting places, and the excitement of the risk involved if they were found only served to keep their love from falling into any kind of routine. They may have wished for a better life free of servitude, but secretly they KNEW, deep down, that they never wanted this to end.  
  
Beautiful. But I'm serious, Bob, you need to stop thinking.  
  
They were transferred to the Massive, one of Bob's electronic conjuring tricks. They imagined they would enjoy travelling through the stars, even if they could only peer at them from under a dish tray. For a while, it was perhaps the best time of their lives, they were no longer in love under the noses of some faceless shift manager, but the TALLEST themselves! The very top of the Irken social structure having their rules broken right below them from the very bottom.  
  
All-right! But Bob you have to stop!  
  
Lenn started to get distracted, but he thought it was all down to work pressures. And then...  
  
BOB!  
  
And then...  
  
Bob stopped abruptly and clutched his head in severe, searing pain. It was like nothing he had ever felt, but it still felt strangely familiar. He fell to his knees, face contorted in pain.  
  
AND THEN...!  
  
Idiot.  
  
...and...  
  
Never listens.  
  
Bob fell unconscious to the ground. Whether it was psychological trauma or a severe heatwave was irrelevant to the towering figure now casting a shadow over him...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	5. A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy (Tr...

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Five: A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy (Trademark)  
  
And then...  
  
And then...  
  
And then...  
  
And...ah, to hell with it.  
  
Bob woke up. It wasn't the slow, hazy kind of waking up that usually happens, it was a sudden rush of consciousness that almost stings when you open your eyes. Bob woke up with a scream, panting and sweating, to find that he was sleeping in a bed. Not the most comfortable of beds, but when you spend your nights sleeping on the floor ANY kind of mattress feels like the height of luxury. Though I'm not sure a soft, wooden bench can be called in all honesty a 'mattress'.  
  
"About fucking time, you lazy little shit," announced a voice next to him. It sounded hoarse and cynical, and that it came from a person who sucked the enjoyment out of people's lives for no other reason than money. A quick, paranoid glance to the left confirmed this suspicion, as Bob found himself face to face with an Irken. This Irken was tired and haggard, and had obviously enough of life, but life kept trundling on in his direction. He was tall-ish and slim-ish, with red eyes and a cloak instead of a uniform, though it still looked something like a uniform (old fashions die hard).  
  
"WHO ARE YOU!?" yelled Bob, after the last few days he was not in the mood for quiet introductions, "I LIKE MY ORGANS WHERE THEY ARE!"  
  
"Uhh...yeah, right. Everyone else calls me Slig, but YOU can call me 'master'," Slig made clear that this wasn't a request, "I don't know how you ended up in the middle of the desert, and I don't care. All you need to know is that YOU are now MY fucking property, YOU will do whatever I fucking well tell you to do!" This barrage of claiming and curse-words finally managed to instil some sort of sensibility into Bob.  
  
"Why does everyone always seem to think I'm a commodity?" whinged Bob, climbing down from his bench, "I'm just passing through, and though I would just LOVE to be someone's eternal whipping-boy, I AM a free-thinking Irken-being, so while it's been nice to meet up with you, why don't you show me the doo...AAAGH!" Not exactly expecting the violent spasming in his neck, Bob crumpled over in pain.  
  
"Control collar," said Slig, holding up a pad with many different pain settings, "not exactly original but, shit, everyone uses 'em. Now get up, you scrawny sack of shit!" Bob managed to recover enough to stand fully upright, but he was still wincing.  
  
"My name's Bob! Not 'shit', BOB! And what's the whole slavery thing for?" Bob queried, somehow expecting another shock. It never came, but there's no shame in being prepared.  
  
"You're a service drone, right?" asked Slig, but Bob's head stayed still as a rock, "I could tell from your size. How you got out here is a bit of a fucking mystery, but oddly enough I don't give a shit! On Sirius Minor, you can't be a successful businessman without slaves, since no fucker is going to do hard labour for anyone else here willingly. If you can't afford any robots, then slaves are the next best thing. It's a shitty deal, but I have to say it's YOUR fucking fault for crashing here in the first place."  
  
"Sirius Minor?" Bob remembered. He hadn't thought of his destination that much (most of his energy was spent getting AWAY from things) but now he had some time to seriously mull it over...Sirius Minor was a smuggler's haven, mainly because it was too worthless to be officially considered as a legitimate planet of the Irken Empire, and there weren't that much in the way of tourist oppurtunities on a spinning pile of dust (some people have TRIED, but their tours primarily consisted of: "If you look to the right, you'll see sand, sand, sand, yep more sand, some slightly different coloured sand, some bloodthirsty smugglers about to slit our throats for our wallets, sand..."). It did have a thriving side-industry though as a legitimate "Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy", which people would probably consider a tourist industry, since it has it's own pamphlet and everything. On the WHSV index however, it only scored about 87, due to the palmed green beaches and tropical islands to the south, which sort of detracted from the effect.  
  
Only having 87 on the WHSV index didn't detract from the fact, however, that this was a ridiculously easy place to get killed in.  
  
"Now, your first job," Slig inserted into Bob's train of thought, "is to haul all that fucking scrap you landed with to the central market, as there's no way in hell that I'm going to carry all that shit myself."  
  
Bob took a deep sigh, as well as a trolley from a rack on the other side of the hut, and started lugging...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	6. I'm On My Break!

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Six: I'm on my break!  
  
Bob had spent the day trawling junk. That was the only way he could describe the stuff he was carrying to and from the hut. If fused lumps of metal was worth something to SOMEBODY, then he wouldn't imagine they would be very good smugglers. But as it happens, it was all in the name of TOURISM. Yep, for every couple of arms dealers, narcotics smugglers, illegally-acquired SIR slave-units and slaves like him, there was at least one tourist. They went here for the 'atmosphere', and their extra income was helping people whose business revolved around the death or incapacitation of other beings in some sort of profit, by simply picking up any old piece of space debris and selling them as 'legitimately smuggled merchandise'.  
  
The tourists tended to be Irken soldiers on holiday. Bob hated them already.  
  
On his way to and from the Central Market, he managed to take in his surroundings. There were, indeed slaves like him, though they didn't tend to be Irken. There were very few Irkens there on the whole, except as the people doing the trading. Even at this arse-end of the universe, the height-determines-status principle was still very much in operation, and since Irken service drones rarely made it off-planet, let alone all the way to Sirius Minor, Bob had found himself as the only Irken slave on the planet.  
  
Or so he thought.  
  
After some three dozen trips he was utterly exhausted, and not exactly satisfied since whatever money this crap actually made would never get to him. He took the trolley back to the hut and practically collapsed once he made it inside.  
  
"All-right, that does it for today," Slig had said to him, "you can have the rest of the day off, but don't you fucking well try to run away from me. This thing has a range of 10,000 miles, so try anything shitty and you'll find your vital signs permanently fucked."  
  
Bob had limped away from the hut, past the slave-programmed SIR units, relics of Operation Impending Doom 1 that couldn't even act as a decent thermos, and their Irken masters, running things here like they did everywhere else in the Empire. If not for a few feet, he could have been one of them. He eventually found himself a nearby bar, which as far as he could tell was where the slaves went when off-work. This wasn't often, since being a slave was practically a mark of failure on their master's part, not being successful enough to own their own robot, and they often took out their frustration on their property.  
  
Bob entered the bar and looked around with an uncertain eye. All the other slaves, all of which were aliens, looked up at Bob with a look of scorn. After all, Bob was Irken, and in the eyes of the other slaves that practically made him the enemy. Isolated by other Irkens on account of his height, isolated by other slaves on account of his race, the worst of both worlds. Bob sat down in as inconspicious a spot as he could and tried to attract the attention of the bartender. Or rather, bartendress.  
  
She turned around, and turned out to be Irken.  
  
Bob couldn't help but blink. He was surprised by the fact that she was Irken, he was surprised that the Irken in question was actually the same height as him, and he was finally surprised by the fact that, despite her height, she was actually quite attractive. Light purple circular eyes, diagonal eyelashes, curled antennae, she immediately struck him with the kind of feeling you reserve for the attractive girl you pass randomly on the street.  
  
"I said what'll it be!?" yelled the Irken girl. Bob woke up from his momentary infatuation and tried to regain some semblance of rational thought. Oh yeah, he remembered, she's been looking at him with an annoyed expression for the past minute or so.  
  
"Uh...er...wh...what d...d'you have? Yeah! Uhh...yeah," there was a momentary pause in Bob's confused ramblings, "who are you!? What are you doing here!?"  
  
"My name's Chak, and I'm serving drinks," said Chak, getting increasingly annoyed, "what are YOU doing here?"  
  
"You got 5 hours?" Bob asked with a smirk appearing on his face...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	7. Fulfilling Stereotypes

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Seven: Fulfilling stereotypes  
  
Bob had been telling his incredible tales of heroism and daring for about fifteen seconds, then gave way to half-an-hour of running around in sheer terror, having things happen to him a lot. Despite the hapless nature of their events, they were still a thrilling tale if told right.  
  
"...and now I'm carrying junk to and from the market for a foul-mouthed sociophobe," Bob concluded to his story. He thought he did pretty well, but Chak was decidedly unimpressed.  
  
"And these things just...HAPPENED to you, did they?" Chak asked with a slight note of scorn. She had met more than a couple of boasting time-wasters in her line of work.  
  
"You asked, I told," commented Bob, "I'm not really expecting you to believe me..."  
  
"Good, 'cos I don't!" Chak said, turning her back to Bob to dry the glasses. Bob was disappointed, but she seemed the only chance of a true friend he had on this whole crummy planet and he wasn't going to give up now.  
  
"So what's your life story, then?" Bob asked, trying to take as much flirtation as possible out of his voice, since she obviously didn't appreciate it.  
  
"Why the crap would you POSSIBLY want to know that?" Chak turned back with a permanently fixed look of annoyance on her face. It had been a long day, and she wanted to take it out on SOMEBODY.  
  
"I'm looking for a friend, is that too much to ask?" said Bob, playing the sympathy card, "I've been used as the universe's punch-bag for quite a while now and I WOULD appreciate it, if people were actually NICE to me for five fucking minutes!"  
  
"Huh, fine. If you REALLY must know, I was a service drone assigned to this galactic cruise liner. It was hijacked by bandits and it's merchandise, i.e. me, was deposited here. I was bought by this member of Tek's lot and now spend my time serving meals to drunken louts. Here endeth the story. Now DO YOU WANT A DRINK OR WHAT!?" Chak yelled at Bob, almost scaring him out of his wits.  
  
"N...no, I j...just wanted to...hang on? Who's Tek?" Bob asked out of all innocence, and the look of scorn coming from Chak was not encouraging.  
  
"You REALLY don't get out much do ya?" Chak wondered, "Tek is one of the Empire's biggest crimelords. He practically runs this planet, and he does so by owning centres of commerce and conversation like this bar. Now, since I have other customers waiting STOP WASTING MY TIME!!"  
  
Chak went back to some furious glass-cleaning in an effort to ignore Bob. Disheartened, he got up to leave the bar. In a corner, a shady group of labourers decided to follow him. The street outside was crowded and dusty, and while Bob had little difficulty ducking and nudging through the pedestrian traffic, he DID have difficulty letting himself loose of the iron grip that suddenly took hold of him and dragged him into a side-street.  
  
"MONEY! NOW!" yelled the leader of the group of aliens holding him hostage. One of them was a tamed slaughtering rat person, while another was a sofa-constructing former inhabitant of Vort, and another seemed to have rocks for limbs. The leader had a screw sticking out of his head. Bob was, as always, incredibly scared.  
  
"NO! WAIT! I'm a slave! Like you guys!" said Bob desperately, "see my height!? That means that other Irkens hate me! And I HATE IRKENS! See? I'm one of you! See? Please? I don't really want to die!"  
  
"Huh, nice try," the leader said scornfully, "you Irkens, you mock us all the time, think of us as unworthy of status because we're 'violent' and 'unpredictable'..."  
  
"Well, doesn't this sort of confirm that?" said Bob, apparently developing a death wish.  
  
"SHUT UP!" yelled the leader, throwing his first punch into Bob's stomach. As he doubled over in pain, the other aliens joined in, kicking and punching Bob in every region of his body. He tried to keep away the blows, but to no avail. He was beaten first to senselessness, then to unconsciousness...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	8. Alternative Sources of Income

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Eight: Alternative sources of income  
  
Irken blood is not pleasant. For that matter neither is human blood, but as much as there is transparently something wrong if you can see pools of it, it at least has a modicum of aesthetic appeal. Not Irken blood, however. A sickly shade of yellowish-green that very effectively gives over the impression that if you can see it, there's something wrong with your immediate surroundings.  
  
Bob had managed to get that impression long before he woke up in a pool of his own blood.  
  
Bob tried to stand up, failed, and almost passed out from exhaustion as he collapsed into a heap back in his own blood-puddle, not helped by his abruptly coughing up more of it. Every part of him hurt, and as he inspected himself he found a multitude of cuts, bruises, broken bones, and a conspicious lack of a control collar. Well, thank goodness for small mercies. He took a few steps away and collapsed again. Some mercies.  
  
Bob was fading in and out of concsiousness, thoughts flashing of his life, of his situation, of the meeting with Chak at the bar, of the attack of the muggers, of Lenn. As soon as the throbbing headache from the last thought subsided, he tried to figure out a way to help himself. Without the collar he was as good as a free man, though freedom accounted for nowt if you're not alive to enjoy it. Immediately he thought of Chak. She was the only person who had a chance of helping him.  
  
He staggered through the deserted streets, gradually gaining more consciousness as time went on. It was night time, and the settlement had practically shut down for business, though the spaceport still seemed very much in operation. That made sense, day and night are meaningless in space. He managed to find his way to Chak's bar, where he saw a flight of stairs leading up to an apartment above it. Must be her sleeping quarters. He stumbled up the stairs, still throbbing in pain, though over the past half-hour of searching he had managed to live with it.  
  
He knocked on the door, apparently interrupting something going on inside as Chak emerged at the door 20 seconds later, out of breath, in a dressing gown, and looking very irritated.  
  
"What are you doing here?" she hissed, "You've got to come back la...wh...what HAPPENED to you?"  
  
"Some of your patrons decided to invent a sports game revolving my head," Bob explained, "Can I come in?"  
  
"Not at the moment," Chak said, "I have to sort out something first and then I can..."  
  
"Chaaakiii! Slig here needs some more luuuvin'!" exclaimed a voice inside. Bob started to develop another one of those psychologically-induced throbbing migraines again, as this situation was starting to develop a sort of familiarity, something that he couldn't quite grasp, but his thoughts turned to Lenn.  
  
"Uhhh...what's he doing here?" Bob asked, rubbing his temple.  
  
"It's...sort of my line of work," Chak explained. This didn't do Bob's headache any favours.  
  
"You've got to be kidding me. YOU!? A...A..." Bob couldn't bring himself to state the obvious.  
  
"Aw c'mon! People our height ALWAYS need some alternate sources of income! You were a service drone, you should know that better than anybody!" Chak argued. Bob's migraine was starting to get intolerable, so he hit his head on the nearby door-frame. Strangely, it got better, but then Slig appeared nearby.  
  
"Who's fucking well calling at this fucking hour..." Slig mentioned in his own curse-laden dialect before noticing Bob, "YOU!? Oh, you piece of shit, I don't know HOW you fucking escaped from the collar but you're not getting away from me THIS fucking time you little shi-"  
  
Slig's rant came to a sudden, though not especially unfortunate, end when a lone laser bolt sliced his head in half. As his life ended in a brief display of blood-letting, Bob and Chak turned to see a group of black-clad Irkens pointing many varied instruments of death at them...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	9. The Best Murder Money Can Buy

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Nine: The best murder money can buy  
  
"You weren't meant to leave any witnesses!"  
  
"So what do we do now?"  
  
"GET 'EM!"  
  
"Way ahead of ya..."  
  
Chak dragged Bob inside and shut the door. They ducked next to Slig's corpse, who's gaping headwound was irretrievably soaking the carpet, as a rapid sucession of laser bolts pierced the wall and chewed up much of the furniture. Near to panic, and still in pain from that beating, Bob just stayed still on the floor, hoping the problem might just go away. But Chak had other plans.  
  
"We have to get out of here!" Chak shouted, dragging Bob's aching body to the rear window and smahing it with her elbow. She chucked Bob out first, and then herself. The fall probably broke a few more bones in Bob's body, but so many were broken already that all the fall inevitably did was wake him up.  
  
"Who are these guys!?" asked Bob in trepidation, as he limped with Chak away from the bar.  
  
"Those are Tek's guys," explained Chak, "he must've taken out a contract on Slig."  
  
"That crimelord guy you told me about?" exclaimed Bob, "why would he take out a contract on a scrap dealer?"  
  
"There!" the voice came from the window behind them, shortly before more laser bolts took out a few chunks of mortar from the corner they turned, "see where they're going? Try to cut them off..."  
  
Bob and Chak ran through the deserted streets, with no idea where they're going to go, but getting AWAY from the last situation seemed a good idea.  
  
"Those are Tek's best hitmen, a bit of overkill for a scrap merchant who was practically on his payroll, don't you think?" Chak mentioned to Bob.  
  
"Why are you asking me!?" Bob protested, "you don't think I have anything to do with this did you?"  
  
"Slig was YOUR owner," Chak accused, "and only since today 'n all. If it's not something to do with the scrap you landed with it MIGHT be to do with..."  
  
"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!" yelled a hitman, now impossibly standing in front of him. Bob looked around and saw that the other three hitmen had blocked off all four exits. They were trapped.  
  
The lead hitman raised his gun, the others following suit, as if preparing for an execution. There seemed no way out of this one. But suddenly a streaming light filled the square, and the noise of weapons priming came from above Bob's head. Then all hell broke loose...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	10. Police Action

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Ten: Police action  
  
Rapid laser-fire ripped through the square, ripping up the four hitmen as if tey were cardboard cut-outs...but filled with goo. Bob and Chak clung on to each other as the laser-fire took out a good portion of the surrounding area. By the end, pieces of the hitmen were strewn across the ground and the two of them had their hands clamped onto their ears. Bob opened his screwed-up eyes to see that he was bathed in some sort of concentrated light, emanating from an object up ahead.   
  
"Stay where you are! We have our weapons trained on you!" announced an officious-sounding voice over what sounded like a mega-phone. As they both looked up they suddenly got the feeling of travelling at several thousand miles an hour over a short distance. They were sucked into the object, and it lifted up above the cloudless sky and into space.  
  
Inside the object, Bob saw that the things surrounding him were actually Irkens, this time in that special uniform that could only mean they were part of the military. One of the Irkens, apparently of a superior rank to the others judging from his height, approached the two of them with a smug, self-satisfied look on his face.  
  
"Greetings. Welcome aboard the Charybdis. I am Commander Larb, and I now officially declare you two to be in my custody," announced the Irken, sounding like the officious voice that was heard over the loudspeakers.  
  
"Uhhh...thanks, I think," said Bob, sheepishly, "I was just wondering...hey! Larb!? Now I remember you! You kicked me in the shin for not putting ice in your soda!" Bob WAS one to bear grudges, he just didn't have the chance to act out on them very often.  
  
"And I remember you from...what?" asked Larb, demonstrating the obliviousness an Irken normally feels for a social inferior, "nevertheless, we are here to capture you, Bob, and whatever secrets you're hiding." Bob found himself perturbed by this.  
  
"Secrets? What secrets? And how do you know my name!?" Bob queried.  
  
"We've been following you for a while, SERVICE DRONE," Larb emphasised his superiority a bit too much for Bob's tastes, "as soon as you touched down on Sirius Minor, we started hearing traffic from the Planet Jackers about your presence. We immediately set out to capture you and find out what so interested them. But Tek intercepted our transmissions and started to send teams to capture whatever crashed on Sirius Minor. He thought that we were referring to some of Slig's scrap that he retrieved from the crash-site, but we knew we were after you."  
  
"Uhhh...that's very nice 'n all, Mr. Larb," Chak perked up, "but what has this got to do with Bob?" Larb paused, not for dramatic effect but because he was legitimately stumped.  
  
"Ummm...actually we were hoping you could tell US that," Larb said, motioning for a group of nearby Irkens to approach with needles.  
  
"You're going to knock me unconscious aren't you?" Bob hazarded.  
  
"Yeah, how did you know?" Larb asked.  
  
"Oh, just a guess," Bob mentioned. The irkens stuck syringes into both Bob and Chak, and the familiar feeling of closing-in darkness washed over him once again...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	11. Boundaries of Sanity

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Eleven: Boundaries of sanity  
  
Ah, the marvellous feeling of waking up after being knocked unconscious. After experiencing it so many times, Bob had started to treat it as a sort of friend. Something to look forward to when being knocked unconscious. First came disorientation, then nausea, then finally a strange feeling of panic as the wakee realises that he isn't where he was when he went to sleep.  
  
After so many times, Bob managed to get through these stages to full consciousness with the greatest of ease. He felt that he was on a bed, a fairly comfortable bed for a change, so he was probably in some kind of military base, since they got all the best breaks. He saw the door in front of him, and decided he felt like a look around. He got up from the bed to realise that his wounds were gone. They must have poked around him a bit when he was unconscious, and upon noticing some scars where there were previously none, realised that his wounds weren't the only thing they were poking around him for. He walked up to the door, but found no way to open it. He pushed against it but it remained stuck fast.  
  
"It's locked from the outside," said a voice. Bob twisted around so quickly he almost sprained his neck and saw Chak sitting on her own bunk. How did he miss that?  
  
"They don't really trust us then, huh?" Bob said, as he felt an insatiable need to state the obvious. Chak leaned forward, having her own views on trust.  
  
"Who's Lenn?" asked Chak. This immediately sent a spark of pain through Bob's cranium as her image flashed through his head.  
  
"W...why do you ask?" asked Bob in response, wondering how she seemed to know about his deepest, darkest secret.  
  
"You cried her name in your sleep," Chak explained, "she was pretty important to you, huh?" Bob sighed, it was about time he told SOMEBODY.  
  
"She was probably the only person I ever loved," Bob reminisced, "she was a service drone like me. We met on the job, and from then on we were inseperable. I used my skills as a technician to get assignments together, where we indulged our passions under the noses of our superiors. The excitement, the DANGER of the thing just really got to us."  
  
Chak listened intently, this was MUCH more fascinating than those boys' own adventures he told back at her bar.  
  
"I managed to get us an assignment aboard the Massive," Bob continued, despite the warning headaches his brain was giving out, "we had the best time of our lives on that ship. Brown-nosing the Tallest, you really had to be there. But...something...was wrong."  
  
Bob started to clutch his head, and Chak got increasingly worried at this point. Bob was starting to shake.  
  
"Lenn was getting distracted," Bob continued regardless, "she was out late, and she seemed to be hiding something. I thought it was just nerves from the new position and then...and THEN..."  
  
An incredible pain, as if his skull was being split in two, wretched his face as his hands clawed at his head to stop it hurting. Chak ran from the bunk and went to grab him as he began to spasm violently on the floor.  
  
"AND THEN...!" Bob yelled continually over and over again, as if trying to unlock some memory in his mind had unleashed an electrical surge pulsing through his body.  
  
"Stop remembering!" yelled Chak in his ear, "it's only making it worse!" Chak caressed Bob's back to calming down. His shouting turned into whimpering, and then it stopped.  
  
"I...I...I'm s...sorry," Bob said, with some effort, "I just...I can't remember. Something happened to her and I can't remember what. Trying to seems to...tear my brain apart."  
  
"It's all-right, you don't need to try," reassured Chak, "there'll be plenty of time."  
  
"Not if he has anything to do with it," Bob mentioned, indicating the Irken-uniformed figure now standing in the open doorway.  
  
"This is very touching 'n all," said the guard, "but the Commander wants to see you. NOW!" The guard motioned with his shock staff for the two to come with him. They did so, with Chak helping Bob along until the pain had eventually ceased. They were brought to a set of large, sliding doors which began to open...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	12. The Chair

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Twelve: The chair  
  
Commander Larb stood in his command chamber, looking as cocky as ever. Victory as an Invader had obviously given his ego an immense boost, as he surveyed his surroundings. Bob and Chak were practically thrown in front of him. Larb turned towards them, non-existent eyebrows arched in self-possessed importance.  
  
"Ah! Welcome to the Irken Military Research Outpost Stark 1-27," Larb said as if the place seemed to mean a damn, "I am in command of this outpost for the duration of Operation Something With The Word Doom In It. The Tallest have given me complete jurisprudence in matters pertaining to you, Bob. And that seems to include you...what's-her-name."  
  
"It's Chak," confirmed Chak, irritably.  
  
"Whatever," dismissed Larb, "Whatever's interesting people in you, Bob, it's nothing to do with your actual body, as my scientists have confirmed. So whatever these people want, it must be contained within your mind." Oh, it's that old chestnut...  
  
"I don't know what you're talking about!" pleaded Bob, "please, I'm just a service drone! The only controversial thing that's happened to me was winning 6 million monies in a bet with people like you! And you sent me into the sun because of that!" Larb squinted at Bob with this news.  
  
"Actually maybe I DO remember you..." Larb attempted to squeeze out of his memory.  
  
"You heard him! He knows nothing!" Chak stuck up for Bob, surprising herself as much as she did Bob, "So would it be possible to just drop us off at the nearest planet and forget the whole thing?"  
  
"Impossible! The Tallest have given me the freedom to pursue your capture and research here at this base!" Larb argued, perhaps letting on more than he realised, "if we can't get our answers from you willingly we will have to resort to...THE CHAIR!" You could almost hear the 'dun-dun-DAAA'.  
  
"That doesn't sound good..." commented Bob as there emerged from the floor a chair, filled with connotations of malice, pain and dentist drills.  
  
"This chair will probe your memories and extract the information we deem necessary to conclude your case," Larb commented, "my scientists have developed it to provide the maximum clarity and information possible, breaking through even mind-blocks. The Tallest haven't put their trust in the Conquerer of Vort for no reason."  
  
"Yay. Conquering the home of the universe's most comfortable couch," Bob added sarcastically, "big achievement." Larb did not take kindly to having his ego dented.  
  
"STRAP THE LITTLE BASTARD IN!" Larb ordered with incredible venom. Bob had obviously touched a sore spot. Scientists came and dragged Bob to the chair.  
  
"No, no wait! Perhaps we got off to a bad start," Bob pleaded desperately, sensing that whatever the chair did, it wasn't going to be pleasant, "I'll co-operate! Whatever you want to know! You don't need to scavenge my brain for it!"  
  
"BOB!" Chak cried, trying to get the scientists off him, but all that did was earn her a violent shock from the end of one of the guard's shock sticks. She fell exhausted on the floor, helpless to intervene.  
  
"Look! I'm offering to give you all the information you need!" Bob continued to plead, "Just ask a question! Any question! I'll answer it! Just please don't strap me in the chair!" This seemed to be to no avail as he was placed in the chair, and straps attached to his limbs to fasten him in place.  
  
"Nice try, service drone," Larb hissed at Bob, "BUT NO ONE QUESTIONS MY ABILITY AND GETS AWAY WITH IT!!" Larb glared at Bob then turned away, disgusted. A scientist drew a strap across Bob's head, fastening it against the sharp instruments that would shortly enter his cranium.  
  
"Now, isn't this comfortable?" re-assured the scientist, who seemed to be twitching in one eye, "I'm Carg, and I'll be your psycho-analyst for today. If you experience a stinging sensation, I can re-assure you that it will pass in favour of horrible screaming pain." Bob looked at the scientist with a horrific glance, then yelled to Larb.  
  
"I'm sorry about what I said earlier! I'm sure you're a good Invader!" pleaded Bob once again, "no! The BEST Invader! The Tallest were wise to put their trust in such a capable soldier! I respect you enough to answer whatever questions you ask! Please! Please don't do this! You don't need to do this! You-AAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!"  
  
Bob's face contorted in pain as the needles at the top of the chair dug into his skull, releasing blood which flowed down the side of his face. His arms flailed around trying to escape the pain, but there was no escape. He began losing sense and started spasming violently as images, confused and distorted, began to flash in his head and on a nearby monitor. Chak was lying on the floor nearby, crying...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	13. You Couldn't Have Thought of That Sooner...

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Thirteen: You couldn't have thought that sooner?  
  
Chak had been taken back to her cell. She was sitting dead still on the bunk, barely comprehending what was going on. Why did she even care for him? She wouldn't have lifted a finger for anyone else. But Bob wasn't like anyone else. He actually made an effort to be a friend to her. Not the type of 'friendship' people usually asked for back at her bar, or more often demanded, but genuine companionship, a feeling that he genuinely cared for her well-being. Which was funny since it was more often her helping him, but deep down she knew that he would've done the same for her.  
  
The cell door opened, and Bob was dragged back inside by the guard. His eyes were wide open, but there was no life behind them, as if he was one of the waking dead. There were deep, bleeding punctures around the circumference of his head. Chak almost broke down at the sight of him, but didn't waste any time in running towards him. The guard placed Bob in her arms.  
  
"Make sure he gets plenty of rest," cautioned the guard, "the quacks may want him again in a while, and we can't interrogate a corpse." On that happy note, he left the cell, shutting the door behind him. Chak cradled Bob, trying to find some sign of consciousness in him.  
  
"Bob!? BOB!? Don't do this to me, Bob, DON'T DO THIS!" Chak cried, "I NEED you Bob! I can't get out of this place without you and you're....you're the only person I've ever trusted..." Bob began to gurgle and slowly rotate his head from left to right, blinked, then leaned over and vomited on the floor.  
  
"Ugh....I don't feel good sir, can I have the day off today?" said Bob, showing definite signs of life, though little in the way of coherence.  
  
"BOB!" Chak yelled, utterly relieved, "Bob! You're all-right!" Bob immediately responded to this piece of information as perception finally managed to respond to his senses.  
  
"Do I LOOK all-right!?" Bob complained, coughing slightly, which only managed to bring another round of vomiting, "My brainmeats feel like they've been spliced. Shit, they HAVE been spliced! And it STILL doesn't look like Larb has what he wants..."  
  
"You can't survive another round of that!" Chak argued, "you're barely alive now! Think of what another hour in that chair will do to you!" Bob was not in the mood to disagree. Though he WAS in the mood to vomit some more. The floor of the cell was now a sickly shade of yellow, with several chunks of Bob's meals for the past couple of days.  
  
"We have to get out of here!" Bob argued, "but I don't know how! It's not as if we can just jump the guards or anything, they seem to be more intelligent than your average grunt." Chak thought back to things Bob told her before.  
  
"You're good at electronics and technical stuff, right?" Chak asked.  
  
"Yeah, but what's that got to do with anything?" asked Bob in reply. As an answer, Chak walked over to the cell door and pulled a panel from beside it, revealing a mass of wiring.  
  
"Do the math!" Chak yelled at Bob, now getting annoyed that he didn't seem to have recognised that his talents would have come in VERY handy over the past few days. Bob, however, was still non-committal.  
  
"Chak, my brain's have been put through the blender," argued Bob, "I don't think I'm really capable of handling complex technical problems." Chak, still annoyed dragged Bob over to the panel and stuck his hands in it.  
  
"SORT IT OUT!" yelled Chak, almost on the verge of apologising for being so insensitive, but she forced it back, now was not the time to be caring and considerate. Bob, staring at Chak with a look of silent resignation, began fiddling with the wires. A spark from the panel signified that his efforts had succeeded, and the cell door opened beside them...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	14. Psychological Profile

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Fourteen: Psychological profile  
  
Bob and Chak had managed to sneak past the many myriad security cameras that lined the corridors outside the cell, and in order to effectively avoid attention they resorted to travelling through the air ducts. This proposed as many problems as solutions...  
  
"I thought you said this was the right way!" Chak's trademark irritation was getting acute.  
  
"I had needles in my brain just half an hour ago!" Bob had argued back, "I just need to get some perception. I'm SURE there's a way out to the surface."  
  
"There may not BE a surface!" Chak responded, "for all we know, this place was built on a worthless hunk of rock and any way out would lead to a horrible, grisly death!"  
  
"SHHH!" Bob indicated urgently, his voice dropping down several notches, "I hear voices." Bob dragged himself to a small grating in the air duct while Chak followed, interested. The voices they heard were eminantly familiar.  
  
"What do you mean, 'you couldn't find anything'!?" said an irritated Larb, one of the voices they recognised, "you had that little asshole strapped in that chair sucking out his brain for a full hour and a half and you're saying you couldn't find anything!?"  
  
"Just because we didn't find what we were searching for," said Crag, the scientist, who was also recognizable, "doesn't mean it isn't there!" Bob drew himself closer to the grate, and peered inside. It seemed to be some kind of private office, with Larb standing up and leaning on a desk, looking very annoyed with the progress of his little project, and Crag was standing in front of him, trying to explain his apparent failure.  
  
"How do you know it IS there, huh?" added Larb irritably, "because at the moment I don't seem to have had jack shit to tell me there's even anything THERE!"  
  
"There's a part of his mind that we weren't able to penetrate," Crag explained, "it may require a second round in the chair to decode it."  
  
"He nearly DIED back there Crag!" Larb said, "and I don't want to have the Tallest asking around, seeing how my investigation is going and all I have to show them is a corpse!"  
  
"The risks are MINIMAL, commander!" Crag pleaded, "even if the subject dies, I'm certain that we would have extracted enough information to decode the memories."  
  
"You assured me that this technology could penetrate ANY mind-block the first time round," Larb commented, "I don't have unlimited reserves of trust, y'know."  
  
"But this is no ORDINARY mind-block, Commander," Crag tried to explain, "in fact, I don't think it's even a MIND-BLOCK as such. It has more in common with severe psychological trauma, he's IMPOSED this memory loss on himself! Our instruments showed that whatever message was implanted in him during his stint aboard the sun-diving cruiser, it was seemingly 'piggy-backed' onto this older memory, to hide from instruments such as this! In order to find what we're searching for, we'll have to find out what the older memory was."  
  
"We NEED that knowledge Crag!" Larb reminded, "We need to know why the Planet Jackers are so interested in obtaining it. It may be of unimaginable importance, so I hope you have some ideas about it!"  
  
"Well, we know the older memory has to do with this other service drone called Lenn..." began Crag. Bob started developing that migraine again.  
  
"Oh no," Bob whispered to himself.  
  
"...as far as we can gather," Crag continued, "this service drone had a close relationship with the subject. They seemed to have manipulated their assignments in order to remain in each other's company. They managed to get an assignment on-board the Massive, and then...?" Crag emphasised the last phrase with a shrug but those two words ripped through Bob's mind like bullets.  
  
And then...and then...and then...  
  
Bob jerked, clutching his head as the pain ripped through his mind and was emphasised by the wounds in his head from the chair. His spasming impacted on the sides of the air duct, echoing down the shaft so it felt like every person on the planet could hear them. Chak grabbed onto Bob and tried to soothe him as quietly as she could. Eventually Bob managed to regain some coherence but the damage was done.  
  
"The second round in the chair will have to be concentrated in that area," Crag had continued talking during the whole thing but Larb was staring at the air duct suspiciously, "we'll have to start as soon as possible, before his defences have a chance to..."  
  
"Shut up, Crag!" Larb motioned, peering towards the air duct, "did you hear that?" Bob and Chak sat as quietly as they could, eyes wide open in fright. Chak still had her hand over Bob's mouth, and Bob's ears were still ringing from the pain. They couldn't take their eyes off Larb's, that were looking at the grating and drawing ever closer.  
  
"Hear what?" Crag added insensitively.  
  
"SHH!" Larb jerked, getting closer to the air duct. Bob and Chak were practically willing their hearts to stop beating as their breathing seemed loud enough to wake the dead. Larb was about to touch the opening to the vent.  
  
"INTRUDER ALERT. STARK 1-27 PERIMETER HAS BEEN COMPRIMISED" Larb turned away from the vent at the sound of the computer but Bob and Chak didn't seem to get any less nervous because of the sound.  
  
"What the hell?" Larb exclaimed, "who could possibly have the resources to get past security?" Larb was interrupted by an explosion that ripped through the ceiling. The air duct collapsed and the both of them fell onto the floor, though Larb and Crag were too busy crouching under the desk to notice otherwise. From the ceiling a team of older-model SIR units descended from the ceiling, though their age didn't detract from the deadliness of the weaponry that was now pointed at Bob's head...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	15. Robots For Hire

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Fifteen: Robots for hire  
  
You never get used to having a weapon pointed at you. You can get used to waking up from being knocked unconscious, you can get used to constant beatings, but you CAN'T get used to the thought that your death is only a trigger-pull away. Such as it was with the older-model SIR unit currently charging up a host of weaponry in the direction of Bob, who was lying on the floor with a fixed expression of pure terror. The weapons seemed about to fire.  
  
"TARGET LOCATED," announced the SIR unit, "MUST BE TAKEN ALIVE." The SIR unit's weapons banks powered down to be replaced with the sound of tentacled wiring strapping around Bob and attaching him to the SIR. The other SIRs inspected the surroundings, looking for something to shoot. Chak was hiding under a pile of rubble that fell when the ceiling collapsed, while Larb was hiding behind the desk. But Crag was cowering in full view of the SIR units.  
  
"SCIENTIST LOCATED," droned another SIR unit, "RETRIEVE SCIENTIST FOR FURTHER EXAMINATION." Another SIR unit latched onto Crag and were about to leave when the door blew open, revealing a mass of security guards armed with laser rifles. All SIRS except the ones capturing Bob and Crag turned to face them.  
  
"ALL OTHER TARGETS EXPENDABLE," droned another SIR unit, indicating a level of malice despite the cold, hard, emotionless state of the SIR. The SIRS opened fire on the gaurds, many of whom fell instantly as the laser bolts seared and burned through their flesh. Many died instantly, others could only scream in pain as limbs deattached and skin melted. But some of the guards managed to get their acts in gear and fired on the SIRs, sending many of them into a state of burned electronics and malfunctioning remnants.  
  
While this commotion was going on the SIRS capturing Bob and Crag activated their boosters and escaped from the ceiling. As soon as it was perceived that their mission was done, the few remaining SIR units boosted away as well, a few lucky shots from the guards sending a couple of them crashing to the ground. Larb jolted up from behind the desk and inspected the damage.  
  
"THEY'RE GETTING AWAY WITH THE SERVICE DRONE!" Larb yelled angrily, "GET AFTER THEM!" Larb's order was seemingly in ignorance of the pile of bodies in front of him. Many of the guards were still in shock, while some had started carting the bodies away.  
  
"With what, commander?" asked a guard innocently. Larb, still seething with rage, tried to calm himself down. Then he heard a groan from a nearby pile of rubble. Larb went over to the pile and threw away the top violently to reveal Chak, covered in bruises and barely conscious.  
  
"What happened?" asked Chak, seemingly forgetting the past few minutes.  
  
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE!?" Larb asked angrily. Chak managed to gain some perspective in response. She stood up uneasily, wiping some dust off her.  
  
"Trying to escape," answered Chak, it was no use trying to deny it, "what were those things?" Larb looked up to the ruined ceiling, above it several floors with interconnecting conduits and corridors now had big gaping holes in them. There was only one person daring enough to directly attack an Irken military base.  
  
"Tek," spat Larb.  
  
Above the base, a group of SIR units was flying with boosters on. Bob had his eyes screwed shut in a natural fear of heights. The surface of Stark 1-27 was an irradiated wasteland, potmarked by green-tinted cliffs, chasms and canyons, perfect for hiding any kind of structure. Or a ship for that matter.  
  
And there it was, in front of Bob there appeared a large ship, docked precariously inside a canyon away from the prying eyes of orbiting vessels. The ship itself seemed to have been constructed out of many and varied pilfered parts, but that didn't seem to detract from the vessel's integrity. Whoever built it knew what parts to pilfer. The SIRs flew into one of the open cargo bays, where a feast of weapons, narcotics and other such unpleasantries was being stored in large quantities.  
  
Bob and Crag were dumped onto the floor of the cargo bay, and a group of henchmen took up the responsibility. The two of them were taken up a cargo lift, through a series of corridors to what seemed like the main bridge, organised almost like a throne room. On a chair, sitting on a central plinth, was an Irken figure.  
  
"We have the service drone, Tek," announced the guard. The figure stood up from the chair and descended from the plinth. When the figure turned towards the two of them Bob could see that he was actually a she. Though any sign effeminity was hidden behind the cold, hard, blue stare emanating from the narrow slits which passed for her eyes. Her black, caped costume only increased her menace as she stepped towards Bob.  
  
"You've been causing me a lot of trouble these past few days," declared Tek, devoid of warmth or humour. The biggest crimelord in the Empire was staring down it's smallest inhabitant...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	16. Kingpin

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Sixteen: Kingpin  
  
"HOW DID THEY GET THROUGH OUR DEFENCES!?" Larb demanded to know, "we have an integrated sensor system that can detect anything coming from orbit, so WHY DIDN'T IT!?" Larb was not happy to say the least. His first proper command since his stint as an Invader and he had just officially cocked it up. But he wasn't willing to face the end of his career just yet, he had to salvage this somehow. The technician facing him was primarily concerned with living through the rest of the day with his innards still inside his body.  
  
"Th...they must've landed on the other side of the planet and travelled across the surface," the technician gave as an excuse, "that's probably why the sensors didn't pick them up, they were directed into space..."  
  
"And did no one think that this might pose a flaw?" asked Larb, sounding innocent but making perfectly clear that the knives were out. The sparks flying from the welding torches of the repairmen added a suitable level of menace.  
  
"W...we didn't even know anyone could find this place!" pleaded the technician, "They must have tapped into our security systems somehow, but I can't think how..." The technician's musings meandered miserably to a finish but the cogs in Larb's mind had already started turning. A tap? Even a person of Tek's resources couldn't have just somehow found this place by hacking some network somewhere. Something of this magnitude would've required...  
  
"Excuse me?" the voice of Chak sounded meagre and pathetic, "but if we know that the ship Tek used to get here had to land here, shouldn't we try to find them? If we hurry we might be able to catch them before they lift off." Chak was trying her best to cope with what was happening, but the strain was rapidly getting to her.  
  
"Look around you, girl!" Larb said, indicating the destruction wrought by the SIRs around them, "we couldn't assualt a sandwich bar at the moment and you're asking us to attack a heavily armoured battlecruiser bristling with all manner of banned weaponry? HAVE YOU THE BRAINWORMS!? We can't do anything without some foresight into Tek's plan."  
  
"Yes, but..." Chak stopped abruptly. She bit her lip and jumped from one foot to another in agitation. Realisation dawned on Larb as her guilty expression said more than it really needed to.  
  
"But you DO know something about Tek's plan," Larb accused, "DON'T you?"  
  
Meanwhile, onboard Tek's cruiser, Bob was kneeling with guns pointed at the back of his head. So another average afternoon, then. Crag was kneeling beside him, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He had never actually had a gun pointed at him before, since the research lab always seemed so safe and secure. But Bob was little better at keeping his own cool, since he had always been an insecure little tyke.  
  
Tek was strolling up and down her bridge, basking in power. Not authority, since she had been outside the law for most of her life, but genuine power. She had eyes and ears in every corner of the Irken underworld, and had given the authorities the slip so many times they had practically stopped looking for her. But now, the chance for REAL power seemed within her grasp, though only if she could get off this planet.  
  
"I don't WANT to be ready for lift-off in the next three to four hours," she complained, "I want to be ready NOW!!" The crewman she had shouted at cowered away back into the engine room. Whenever something was wrong, the crew had long ago realised that making excuses was only going to get you flushed into space.  
  
"WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME!?" shrieked Bob. The pressure was getting too much for him. He needed answers and he needed answers NOW. Tek turned, a sly grin appearing on her cold, emotionally-vacant face.  
  
"Why don't you tell me?" Tek asked menacingly, "we have plenty of time for it." Bob remained shtum, since without the chair, all Tek had to get information out of him was strong arm tactics. But Crag wasn't so confident.  
  
"I'll tell you whatever you want to know!" Crag pleaded, "just don't hurt me, please! All I want to do is play with experiments!" Crag burst into fits of tears, this was more than his job was worth. Bob shook his head in disgust.  
  
"Touching," Tek said icily, "and what do you have to offer, sevice drone?" Bob tried his best to look defiant, but he wasn't particularly good at it.  
  
"My friends will find me you know," said Bob, with very little in the way of authenticity.  
  
"Service drone, you don't HAVE any friends," Tek commented, "all you have is people who want to find out what's inside your brains. And I wouldn't rely on that call-girl friend of yours, either."  
  
"And why's that?" Bob spat. He didn't like having Chak described as a 'call-girl'. Tek leaned forward conspiratively and uttered a few words which completely dissolved Bob's moral foundations.  
  
"Because she works for me..."  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	17. The Informant

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Seventeen: The informant  
  
"But how can she work for you!?" Bob screamed at Tek, "She's one of the good guys! She said I was the only one she could trust! She saved my life more than once! She's supported me! She cared for me when no one else would! HOW CAN SHE BE ONE OF YOU!!?"  
  
"Tek has senses in every corner of the criminal underworld," explained Chak, half a planet away, to Larb, "I was one of them. I was an informant in this slave bar, everything that mattered to her I was to inform upon. Then one of her contacts told me to look out for anything regarding the crash on Sirius Minor."  
  
"Tek must've picked it up from the transmission," Larb concluded, arms crossed and with a stern expression on his face, "so what did you do next, traitor?"  
  
"She found you sitting at the bar," explained Tek, back on her command cruiser, "to find out more, she had some of her lackeys beat you up, so giving her a pretext to remove your control collar and attach a tracking device on you."  
  
"STOP SAYING THAT!" Bob shrieked, not willing to believe his ears, "SHE DIDN'T DO ANY OF THOSE THINGS!"  
  
"I did," admitted Chak to Larb, back at the outpost, still almost falling apart from the attack, and Chak herself seemed to falling apart, "I went to find all that I could about the remain's owner, Slig. I managed to arrange a night with him, and seeing he didn't have anything, I ordered his death in order not to compromise the operation."  
  
"Then Bob showed up, did he?" asked Larb, directing the repair effort with his other hand.  
  
"Yes, you turned up at Chak's doorstep just as the hit-men arrived," Tek said to Bob, onboard the cruiser, "an unfortunate failure of organisation, but those responsible for it were dealt with in the same way that Irken patrol ship dealt with the hit-men. But, the ever resourceful Chak turned this to her advantage. Sensing that it was YOU who the message referred to, she attempted to befriend you to find out why the military were so interested in you, and relayed information about the base to us so we could retrieve you..."  
  
"SHE DIDN'T MANIPULATE ME!" cried Bob, "SHE CARED ABOUT ME! STOP IT! STOP! IT! ...you're messing with my mind..."  
  
"Yeah, I did it," admitted Chak, back at the base, disgusted with herself, "but I'm ready to help now! I can tell you how to get into Tek's ship, where it's location is! Just so long as you promise to me that YOU WON'T PUT HIM IN THAT DAMN CHAIR!"  
  
"An Irken soldier doesn't make 'promises'," declared Larb, "especially not to a traitor like you!"  
  
"No promises, no info," declared Chak, attempting to cajole Larb into it, despite the fact that after her admission she had little or no solid ground to make threats from. She was quivering and shaking and turning physically sick. Larb picked up on this.  
  
"Now, there's no point trying to negotiate your way out of this mess," Larb threatened, "you will co-operate or you will be taken out back and shot as a double-agent, understand?" Tears were rolling down Chak's face. She had been placed between two equally odious sides, but without any third option. She had had ambitions, but now all she wanted in the universe was just to see Bob again.  
  
"All-right," Chak relented. Looking down at the floor and sobbing quietly. She had managed to re-sell a second-hand soul, and she probably couldn't feel any worse than she did right now.  
  
"Right people!" Larb declared to his remaining soldiers, "time to get our careers back!"  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	18. Infiltration

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Eighteen: Infiltration  
  
The patrol ship hugged the surface of a planet like a leech. A high-speed, flying leech. It travelled down the bottom of Stark 1-27's deep chasms, keeping as low as it possibly could, twisting and turning through the planet's many openings and corners to keep themselves secret. Whenever there was a choice of going over or under an obstacle, it always went under it. The inhabitants of the ship, some two dozen trained soldiers, were getting the inalienable feeling that navigating canyons at several thousand miles an hour was just a bit suicidal. They were perfectly happy facing suicidal odds in close combat with the enemy, but place them in a situation where their whole lives were in the hands of some madman with a degree from flight school and they quickly grew reservations.  
  
Commander Larb had no such reservations. Chak, however, was doing everything in he power to keep herself from soiling her undies. But she kept her nerve, she would have to if she wanted to see Bob alive again.  
  
"There it is!" she yelled as the transport twisted around a corner to see a giant metal hulk ABOVE it, clinging to the canyon walls. The ship slowed down and drifted upwards until it made contact with a pre-determined section of the ship's hull. A docking collar extended from the smaller ship and attached to the hull, cutting a hole through it to let the soldiers through. No alarms went off as they clambered on-board, so Chak had obviously done her homework.  
  
"Okay, we're inside Chak," asked Larb earnestly, as he didn't want to be here any longer than he had to, "now where would the safest way to the brig be?"  
  
"Down that corridor," Chak indicated, pointing that way, "second opening to the right, then up the service shaft. It should be right in front of you. There are a few guards, bt if you're quick enough they shouldn't pose any problems."  
  
"Right," Larb confirmed, since Chak had little reason to lie, "Soldier Grep? Stay with Chak and make sure she doesn't try anything screwy. Everyone else...MOVE!" The rest of the team disappeared down the corridor as Grep turned to Chak, annoyed that he wasn't going to see any action.  
  
"Okay miss," Grep began nonchalantly, "we're-UGH!" Grep dropped to the floor with a rock-shaped gash embedded in the side of his face. Chak threw the rock to the ground and ran in the opposite direction to the team. It was easier than she had imagined, she thought, as she hadn't anticipated that Larb would willingly leave her behind. Larb would probably be cursing himself soon as the directions she gave led straight to the trash compactor.  
  
Chak climbed up deserted stories and conduits. She had been on the ship before during her time as one of Tek's most effective spies, and she knew what places would be deserted and what wouldn't. Soon she found herself in the detention area. There was a solitary guard posted at a single door, ready to jump anyone who tried to hack through it. Tek learned from the mistakes of her opponents. Though with the guard's attention directed at the door, a flaw had nevertheless developed. She threw herself at the guard's head and managed by luck as much as anything else to knock him out on the cell door. She opened the door and immediately her mood lightened when she saw Bob once again...  
  
"Bob!" Chak shrieked in delight, "I'm so glad to see you again! We have to get out of here!" Bob stood up from his previously despondent position and looked at Chak.  
  
"Chak..." he could only utter in surprise. He began to walk towards her.  
  
"I know a way to the shuttle bay," Chak had continued, "we can steal a ship and get out of here together! We can-" Chak was cut off as Bob punched her in the face with as much force as he could muster. Thrown back to the floor in shock, she wiped away some blood from her mouth and looked up into his hate-filled eyes full of nothing but fear.  
  
"Chak, I trusted you!" spat Bob, "I believed in you! I cared about you! Damnit for a while I thought I was even in love with you! Was all that just to please THAT waste of skin!?" Bob was not in the mood for reason.  
  
"You don't know what it was like!" protested Chak, standing up, "I had nothing on Sirius Minor! I was begging for scraps on the street! I was at my wit's end. Then Tek came to me and gave me work. When Tek asks for something, you don't turn her down! That's a sure way to get yourself killed..."  
  
"WELL BOO-FUCKING-HOO!" yelled Bob, not caring about excuses, "you manipulated me. You lied to me. For all I know you still ARE lying to me." Bob walked towards the door, as Chak went into a quiet mental dissolve, sobbing inwardly.  
  
"Bob, please," Chak whined, "I NEED you-"  
  
"DON'T PULL THAT SHIT ON ME, CHAK!" shouted Bob, reducing Chak to visible tears as he reached the entrance, "I'm finding my own way to the ship. For all I care, you can go to hell." Bob left the cell only to find Larb and his mob pointing a barrage of weapons at him. Chak turned around, desperately willing them to NOT be there. Bob's hatred turned back exponentially to fear, and a smile developed on Larb's face.  
  
"Touching..." exclaimed Larb...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	19. Icarus

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Nineteen: Icarus  
  
Bob was facing a brigade of trained soldiers from Larb's personal pet project, but his fear turned to silent resignation. Chak had released him into the clutches of Tek's opponents, there was only one real conclusion to be drawn.  
  
"I should've expected this somehow," Bob lamented. Chak had switched sides, but neither side cold be reasonably described as 'his'. Chak left the cell in shock, she had NOT anticipated this, and it was losing her the only friend she had.  
  
"I know what this looks like," Chak pleaded to Bob, "but I honestly had nothing to do with this! I sent you people to the trash compactor! You...you tricked me!" It SOUNDED like a lame afterthought, and she knew it.  
  
"Good job Chak! Nice of you to keep up appearances," Larb said coldly. Even though his sole claim to fame was conquering a planet famous for it's unimaginably comfy sofas, he knew enough about the principles of 'divide and conquer' to play whatever card he was given. Besides, he liked soap operas.  
  
"He's twisting the truth Bob!" Chak begged, "don't listen to him!" But Bob wasn't even listening to her. She was no longer a person in Bob's world. To him, she was now a fixed point in space with annoying little noises emanating from it. Bob instead turned his attention to Larb.  
  
"You may think that you've got away with it," Bob mentioned defiantly, "but you forgot ONE thing!"  
  
"And what might that be?" asked Larb, unimpressed.  
  
"Uhhh..." Bob began, resistance melting like so much cheap ice cream, "actually I was hoping you could tell me..." Bob was interrupted by a chirping sound from Larb's command belt. Larb grabbed the radio from it irritably.  
  
"Grep?" Larb spat into the radio, "I thought I ordered radio silence! And shouldn't you be unconscious?"  
  
"Hello, precious," said the radio, sounding rather more feminine than Grep, though not by much, but nevertheless putting the fear of god into Larb and every other person in his vicinity, which was actually rather apt.  
  
"Tek?" mewed Larb. His little operation wasn't especially going to plan.  
  
"The one and only," uttered the cold, emotionless voice from the radio, "just thought I'd drop in and see how you were doing. Such a shame about Grep isn't it? Cut down in his prime by several tons of Irken alloys breaking into pieces on the planet's surface around him. And that was your own ship and all? Crying shame..." Larb gulped.  
  
"What do you want?" Larb spoke into the radio.  
  
"The same thing you want," the radio responded, "but unlike you, I don't really have the technology to do anything about it. However unlike you, I also have the ability to get out of this impasse alive. Get my drift?"  
  
"Even if we get you the technology," Larb proposed, "you won't be able to operate it!"  
  
"Oh, you needn't worry about that..." the radio answered. A rumbling was heard and felt by every person in the detention area. The cruiser was airborne.  
  
"PLEASE DO WHAT SHE WANTS, SIR!" yelled the radio, sounding hoarser and on the brink of a nervous breakdown, "THEY'RE POKING NEEDLES IN MY BUTT!"  
  
"That was your little scientist lapdog," the voice on the radio returned to it's previous lack of feeling, "give me everything I need and you may just get out of this aliv-" The radio was cut off as the cruiser tremored and shook. A tremendous bump coursed through the ship and the entire team seemed to be thrown two feet in the air. The two smaller members managed to keep their balance on account of their size.  
  
"Well, it's been nice knowing you gents," Bob uttered before taking advantage of their temporary confusion by skidaddling. Chak looked upon the mass of bodies, rubbing their heads or nursing their knees or simply getting over the shock, and saw her choices laid out in front of her.  
  
"What the hell was-BZZZZT!" the radio spat as confusion wracked the ship about what they just hit. Chak looked at the disappearing figure of Bob and made her choice...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	20. Beneath a Glass Sky

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Twenty: Beneath a glass sky  
  
The entire ship was caught in a throng of activity. Klaxons were wailing, and the hired crewmen who worked on the vessel were running about in a state of confusion, wondering how a ship can seem to have collided with thin air. Amidst this bedlam, a small figure ducked and weaved his way through the traffic, virtually unnoticed because of his size and because of the dense activity abound. Bob was good at this sort of thing.  
  
He paused behind a service station, trying to get his bearings towards the shuttlebay. This was hard on a ship he had barely spent about 6 hours on. What he really needed was...no. He wasn't going to seek the help of that conceited bitch. This was going to be hard since that conceited bitch was going to give him help whether he wanted it or not.  
  
"Chak!" Bob yelped, as she appeared beside him, "I thought that 'you can go to hell for all I care' was a big enough hint..."  
  
"Listen!" said Chak forcefully, "you may not WANT my help, but you obviously NEED it! After we get off this ship you can go on with this man-bitchiness to your hearts desire but at the moment YOU...NEED...MY...HELP! Live with it!" At this withering counter-argument, Bob finally relented.  
  
"All-right, miss 'who should I betray today'," Bob asked scathingly, "show me the way to the shuttle bay, and don't do any of that 'leading me into the trash compactor' shit. Believe me, I'll know." Bob turned to Chak and revealed that he had picked up a gun. Chak seemed shocked, but not necessarily surprised.  
  
"I don't THAT's necessary..." Chak began.  
  
"Maybe not," Bob butted in, "but I'd like some insurance behind me." Chak grudgingly led the way in front of Bob and his concealed gun. They still remained unnoticed as they approached the shuttlebay, and took the oppurtunity to investigate a bit. Looking out of whatever portholes they could find they saw that the sky had somehow become...solid. Hatchways and openings seemed to be appearing out of nowhere and attaching themselves to the ship's hull. Gunfire echoed down the corridors. The ship was being boarded, by what they couldn't fathom.  
  
Suddenly a section of wall next to them imploded, and heavy-set figures in bulky, all-body suits clambered through the opening bearing weapons, blowing the brains out of anyone who approached. The leader of this newly appeared foe took one long look at Bob and came to a conclusion.  
  
"Target located," the leader gruffed, "cuff 'im." The other aliens surrounded Bob, seemingly ignoring Chak.  
  
"What the hell...WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE!?" Bob demanded as one of the aliens slapped his aimed gun aside and picked him up in one hand, "AND WHAT IS THIS THING ABOUT DRAGGING ME TO A CELL!? CAN'T YOU PEOPLE MAKE YOUR MINDS UP!?" All this yelling was to no avail as the aliens retreated into the hole they created, one of them turning towards a bare section of wall and stapling a poster into the bulkhead stating 'This vessel is now official property of the Planet Jacker Defence Force. Be happy!'. Chak attempted, against all logical thought, to free Bob from the alien's clutches, but all that earned her was a violent slap across the face, sending her bleeding against the far wall.  
  
"Bob!" cried Chak as Bob disappeared inside the hole. Chak winced as she dragged herself towards the gun, picked it up and sent a token shot into the hole, which seemed to do nothing but chink the charred bulkhead plating. Chak sagged to the ground. She had lost Bob for the third time today. She began to cry, not quite believing how sucky her luck seemed to be. But her luck still had someway left to drop as a shadowed hand gripped her face and pulled her into one of the ducts, cold blue eyes urging her to be quiet...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	21. Stark 1-27 is Missing

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Twenty-one: Stark 1-27 is missing  
  
Bob was no longer on Stark 1-27, neither was anyone else for that matter. The ship wasn't on Stark 1-27, the base wasn't on Stark 1-27, and technically even Stark 1-27 wasn't on Stark 1-27 anymore. Stark 1-27 was now nothing more than a fixed point in space that no longer had any relevance. If you're looking for all the action you have to go 20 or so light years to your left.  
  
Bob managed to get a good glimpse of the planet as he was taken up towards the Planet Jacker's command bridge. It was encased in a vast hollow bubble. But this wasn't any ordinary freight-carrying planet-stealing ship, this ship was bristling with weaponry and vast troop movements could be witnessed on the surface. This thing was designed for war.  
  
The elevator travelling towards the command bridge, jutting out from the bubble by some thousand miles, eventually stopped and Bob was thrown out towards what seemed to be the lead Planet Jacker. His uniform was slightly more ornate than the others, and he looked decidedly sinister.  
  
"Glorious leader," announced Bob's captor, "we have captured the primary target and await further instructions." At this news, the lead Planet Jacker stood aside to reveal the smaller dishevelled figure of Crag, the Irken scientist, scowling at the team.  
  
"Has the ship been cleaned through?" asked Crag, displaying his superiority. Bob could barely believe his eyes, just mere moments ago he was a shivering wreck, desperately avoiding having himself killed, and now he was straddling around like he was ruler of the universe.  
  
"We have rounded up most of the crew," declared the Planet Jacker, "but Tek and Larb are both still missing, we're still searching for them." Crag became infuriated at this news.  
  
"You managed to capture everyone except THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE!?" Crag exclaimed, "I don't believe it, how can you be so incompetent!? I asked for three people, and you give me everyone else BUT two of those three people! GET HIM OUT OF MY SIGHT!" The other Planet Jackers dragged a protesting team leader into an airlock and hit the 'eject' button. Crag was obviously not a man to mess with. He turned his attention to Bob.  
  
"I take it you're wondering why I'm here?" Crag asked of Bob.  
  
"Well, it had crossed my mind," Bob admitted, "I mean, it's not especially usual for an Irken to be commanding Planet Jackers..."  
  
"And you would be right, but these circumstances are fairly unusual," Crag began, clicking a remote control to bring up a holo-projector, "four days ago, the star FJ-49 went into nova, despite being in a relatively stable period of its life-cycle." Bob's interest waned almost immediately.  
  
"What's THAT got to do with anything!?" Bob demanded.  
  
"It was the star your ship was about to collide into. Planet Jacker scout satellites took these pictures of the area shortly after the nova," Crag continued, bringing up a picture of the cruiser Bob was aboard, apparently in the tractor beam of some other ship, "the other ship you see is a Klarin vessel. The Klarins are...or rather WERE...an inward-looking, isolationist race of intelligent termites that would've posed little resistance to conquest except their annoying ability to collapse stars. When the Planet Jackers began to enter space, they attempted to conquer the Klarins for this ability. However, all this eventually got them was a new nickname. So they were mostly left alone to their own devices until an accident on their own planet caused their own sun to nova. Being isolationist 'n all, most of their race was exterminated. As far as we can make out, this irradiated hunk of junk was their last surviving vessel."  
  
"So what were they doing at FJ-whatever it was?" Bob queried, glad to be finally getting some answers.  
  
"Looking for the first ship they could come across, probably," Crag surmised, "my theory is that they tried to carry on knowledge of their species, for posterities' sake. Then they found you, Mr. psychological trauma boy. The vessel disappeared after that. FJ-49 going nova must have been something to do with the ship's vicinity to it when they rescued you. I was already on the trail of this technology when we intercepted transmissions from the Planet Jackers that they were looking for the same thing. I offered my services to them, since I wouldn't trust Larb or others of his intelligence to handle a technology of this power. Since the Planet Jackers were especially eager to acquire this technology, due to their current predicament, I managed to get an especially handsome deal out of it."  
  
"An army?" Bob wondered, "what are you going to do with it?"  
  
"Wouldn't YOU like to know," Crag ended cackingly. He was in a good mood. He had the means to controlling the galaxy right there in his palm, and he wasn't going to let any self-centred Planet Jacker, or overbearing Irken, or psychopathic crimelord control his little beauty. His good mood was to come to a sudden juddering end as the brains of the ornately-uniformed Planet Jacker beside him were splattered all over his lab coat. Over the collapsing body came Larb, screaming an Irken war cry as he picked up Bob and disappeared down a service shaft.  
  
"HOW DID HE GET IN HERE!?" Crag demanded to know, wiping brain 'o Planet Jacker off his coat, "get after him! NOW!" A series of guards climbed down the service shaft after Larb and Bob, but they had greater reason to worry about the figures lurking above them in the shadows, one with cold, blue, emotionless eyes holding a knife to the throat of a smaller one, watching, listening, planning...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	22. Brain Putty

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Twenty-two: Brain putty  
  
In the shadows was heard a measly whimper. Deep in the darkest conduits of the Planet Jacker's command vessel could be vaguely made out two figures. The small one was the one who was whimpering, a slither of sharp steel poised across her neck. The other figure was recognizable for her narrow, blue, emotionless eyes.  
  
"T...Tek," whimpered the smaller figure, "w...what do y...you want from m...me?" The emotionless eyes remained cold, but a change in mood was evident. She pulled the knife away from the smaller figure's neck.  
  
"I want you to do something for me, Chak," requested the cold, blue eyes, "you were at that little demonstration in the command centre. If that knowledge falls into the hands of either of those two loons, it's bad business for the universe. We must make certain that doesn't happen." The cold, emotionless figure then told the whimpering wreck what she wanted her to do.  
  
"I can't do that!" she pleaded to those eyes, "I...can't..."  
  
"You were once my most loyal servant," reminded the eyes, "you were a nobody, a meagre shell of an Irken in rags back on Sirius Minor. I rescued you from that, and you loved me for it. You wouldn't turn your back on me now, would you?"  
  
"But...I..." the smaller figure began.  
  
"If you do this, you can be by my side properly," tempted the eyes, "a comfortable home, people who care about you. That's what you always wanted isn't it? Turn your back on me and you'll be lucky to avoid being shot. Do this one, simple task, and you'll no longer have to sleep in the dirt." The smaller figure attempted some show of resistance, but finally relented...  
  
Meanwhile, in a rather better-lit service shaft on the other side of the structure, Bob was being held by Larb.  
  
"Okay," Bob asked, "now you're not going to go on about your life story and then chuck me in a cell are you? 'cos that's starting to get old..."  
  
"Crag's an evil genius," Larb admitted, "I'm a soldier. Soldiers don't do those sort of things."  
  
"You did that to me," Bob reminded.  
  
"Yeah well, I wasn't stuck in some crummy air vent at the time, WAS I!?" Larb yelled, irritated at not being able to boss someone around for so long, "never trust a mad scientist. Okay! So at the moment we appear to be screwed BUT, we just might be able to get out of here if we had some tactical adventage. That brings us to the knowledge in YOUR head." Bob began to get anxious.  
  
"Oh please? My brain's screwed up as it is!" Bob lamented, "Crag couldn't do it with that chair of his, why do you think you can do any better?"  
  
"I'm sure that Crag was just trying to buy time before the Planet Jackers got here," Larb theorised, "so the information in your brain shouldn't be that hard to access. It all depends on this person called Lenn." Bob's headaches began to multiply. He rubbed his temple urgently.  
  
"Larb...please...I don't..." Bob began, trying to stem the migraines as much as possible.  
  
"Right, so you two were close," Larb continued, concentrating on the throbbing vein appearing on Bob's forehead, "you were engaged in a relationship full of romance and danger and kitchen mops. You were practically MADE for each other. A romance that usually happens only in operas. You transferred to the Massive. You were having the greatest time of your lives. Then you sensed something was wrong. She started to get distracted. You blamed on nerves. And then...?"   
  
And then....   
  
And then...  
  
"Stop!" Bob begged, beginning to clutch his head in agony, "please!" But Larb didn't listen, pinning Bob up against the wall and holding his limbs apart.  
  
"AND THEN WHAT, BOB!?" Larb demanded, holding onto his grip as Bob began screaming and spasming, spinning into delirium as the pain ripped through his skull, "What happened to her! Did she die!? Did someone do something to her!? Did she do something to you!? C'mon Bob! WHAT...DID...YOU...DO!!?"  
  
And then...  
  
And then...  
  
Bob was beginning to drool at this stage, and on the verge of losing consciousness. Unintelligible noises came screaming from his throat until the truth finally hit him like an oncoming train...  
  
And then...  
  
And then...  
  
"I KILLED HER!!" Bob shrieked, then fell unconscious from the effort...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	23. Trauma

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Twenty-three: Trauma  
  
KRAKIN LIBRARY ENTRY 001: KRAKIN HISTORY A: 5000-3000BG. FIRST EMERGENCE OF ANCIENT PLANET-BASED EMPIRES. FIRST EMERGENCE OF WRITING. PRIMARY POLITICAL BODIES: KORMINS APPROX. 5000-4181BG. TERANARIANS APPROX. 5000-3945BG. GANSARDINS 4473-4244BG. KARALACHINS 4302-3307BG. HARPLITES 3945-2661BG.  
  
They were in love ever since they met. They had so many common interests, common predicaments, common foes. They had a passion that would have taken a deity to seperate. They changed their surroundings as they saw fit. They could not see past each other's eyes. The future seemed endless. Then, Bob and Lenn boarded the Massive...  
  
KRAKIN LIBRARY ENTRY 002: KRAKIN HISTORY B: 3000-1BG. FIRST EMERGENCE OF COMPLEX TECHNOLOGIES AND POLITICAL GROUPINGS. PRIMARY POLITICAL BODIES: TORMIK IMPERIUM 2922-1628BG. SERCLAK KINGDOM 2661-1582BG. DARMIN CONCLAVE 2242-1394BG. LIRAL CONFEDERACY 1626-342BG. FIRKIN CONGLOMERATE 1616-284BG. KRAKIN ALLIANCE 1582-PRESENT. DRARNIN COALITION 342-1BG.  
  
They danced in the bowels of the ship to the tune of the engines, making their own tune from the humming and throbbing of the fusion reactors. But then Lenn abruptly asked to leave. Bob was distraught, as he was every time she was so much as out of his sight. But he controlled his fear and let her leave that time. He was getting suspicious. She was staying out later and later and came back with money. She kept saying it was from extra shifts, but it seemed a bit too much for comfort...  
  
KRAKIN LIBRARY ENTRY 003: KRAKIN HISTORY C: 1-3343YG. UNIFICATION OF PLANET UNDER KRAKIN ALLIANCE AFTER GREAT WAR. EXPANSION INTO SPACE. DEVELOPMENT OF FUSION INHIBITOR. KRAKIN-(PLANET JACKER) WAR 343YG. DECLARATION OF ERA OF "GLORIOUS ISOLATION". KRAKIN SUN NEARS END OF LIFE FROM 3341YG. DEVELOPMENT OF FUSION ENHANCER 3343YG. TEST SUCCESSFUL. PRACTICAL APPLICATION RESULTS IN KRAKIN SUN GOING NOVA. END OF KRAKIN RACE.  
  
Playing the jealous boyfriend he swore to himself he'd never become, Bob followed Lenn to the sleeping quarters normally reserved for higher officers of the Massive. He saw her enter one of the more ornate doors to one of the sleeping quarters. Daring to take a small peek in, Bob saw his entire world collapse around him as he saw Lenn in bed with Tallest Purple...  
  
KRAKIN LIBRARY ENTRY 004: THE FUSION INHIBITOR, DESCRIPTION. DEVELOPED DURING THE EARLY YEARS OF SPACE TRAVEL, THE FUSION INHIBITOR CEASES ALL FUSION WITHIN A STAR, CAUSING IT TO IMPLODE ON ITSELF AND GO NOVA, DESTROYING AN ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM WITH IT. CAN BE FINE-TUNED FOR IMMEDIATE OR EXPONENTIAL EFFECT. USED IN KRAKIN-(PLANET JACKER) WAR TO DESTABILISE (PLANET JACKER) STAR.  
  
Bob returned to his hard-floored service drone sleeping quarters completely shell-shocked. She had been his everything, almost his only reason for living for the last few years. And she had cheated on him. Lied to him. Shared her passions with another Irken. He was inflamed, and enraged. He was straddling through the dark corridors of the ship with thoughts of death and murder in his head. Somehow he managed to rip off a metal pole from the top of one of the engines as he passed it. He stopped, looked at the pole, and began to think truly evil thoughts...  
  
KRAKIN LIBRARY ENTRY 005: THE FUSION INHIBITOR, THEORY. THE FUSION INHIBITOR USES A NARROW, 200 TERAWATTS BEAM TO BE EMITTED INTO THE CENTRE OF THE STAR. THE BEAM TRANSMITS A SMALL AMOUNT OF FISSION MATERIAL TO BREAK APART THE MOLECULES IN THE CENTRE OF THE SUN, DISRUPTING THE FUSION PROCESS AND BEGINNING A GRADUAL IMPLOSION THAT DESTABILISES THE REST OF THE STAR.  
  
Bob waited patiently for Lenn to return. She entered and moved towards Bob to engage in their usual, passionate kiss, but Bob stayed solid. When Lenn asked what was wrong, Bob asked her where she'd been. As usual, she said she had been working extra shifts. Bob lost his nerve and called her liar, revealing that he had followed her to Purple's bedroom. She hung her head in shame, and revealed that she had been working extra shifts...as a prostitute.  
  
KRAKIN LIBRARY ENTRY 006: THE FUSION INHIBITOR, DESIGN. THE NARROW BEAM OF THE FUSION INHIBITOR USES A VERY SPECIFIC FREQUENCY THAT MUST BE MODIFIED ACCORDING TO THE PRECISE PROPORTIONS OF THE STAR TO A RANGE OF 0.001 HERTZ. THE MEANS BY WHICH THE BEAM PENETRATES THE SURFACE OF THE STAR VARIES FROM UNIT TO UNIT, AND CAN REQUIRE CONSIDERABLE EXPERIMENTATION BEFORE SUCCEEDING. PRECISE INFORMATION FOLLOWS TO SAVE PEOPLE THE TROUBLE...  
  
Bob yelled with rage. She was his own, his everthing, yet somehow she had become used by other people for money. She tried to excuse herself, claiming poor income for a reason. But Bob wouldn't listen. Love was not something you bartered away for pennies. Love was forever. He engaged in a heated engagement. Lenn tried to calm him down, but he swung the metal pole in response, smashing her head against the wall. She slumped to floor, blood seeping out every orifice in her head.  
  
KRAKIN LIBRARY ENTRY 007: FUSION INHIBITOR, RISKS. THEORETICALLY, IT IS POSSIBLE FOR THE FUSION INHIBITOR TO BE USED TO PROLONG A STAR'S LIFE. USING THE PROCESS OF SLOWING DOWN THE FUSION PROCESS TO CREATE MORE FUSABLE ELEMENTS IN THE STAR'S CENTRE. BUT THIS PROCESS IS MUCH MORE PRECISE THAN THE PROCESS OF CEASING ALL FUSION, AND HAS A VERY SLIM CHANCE OF SUCCEEDING AT BEST. WE TRIED, WE FAILED, LEARN FROM OUR EXAMPLE YOU MORONS...  
  
Bob's heart melted. He ran towards Lenn's side, apologizing for all the cruel things he said, and promising that things would be all better. But she was already dead. By his own hand. He couldn't recognize the fact, dragging Lenn's lifeless corpse across the bowels of the ship, trying to find something to 'make her better'. But it was no use. He began developing a headache, and staggered away from the body, eventually even forgetting of it's existence. And no one missed a service drone.  
  
KRAKIN LIBRARY ENTRY 008: "THE SELKJORN". ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS KRAKIN OPERAS. COMPOSED IN 737BG, IT IS A TRAGEDY CONCERNING TWO DENIZENS OF THE LABOURING CLASS WHO FALL IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER, BUT ARE TORN APART BY THE FEMALE DEALING IN PROSTITUTION WITHOUT THE MALE'S KNOWING, LEADING TO THE FEMALE'S ACCIDENTAL DEATH. IN THE FINAL ACT, THE MALE GOES INSANE FROM GRIEF, BELIEVING THE FEMALE TO STILL BE ALIVE. THIS ACT HAS DIVIDED CRITICS SOMEWHAT...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	24. Deja Vu

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Twenty-four: Deja vu  
  
"Wow," Larb could only say when the entire memory was played out, "tough break. So the Krakins somehow inadvertantly channeled their library data into this closed-off section of your brain?" Larb sat patiently for an answer, but Bob wasn't really listening, he was just sitting on the floor, staring silently into space, struck with the enormity of what he'd done, tears rolling slowly down his face.  
  
"Yeah," Bob said vacantly, "there's not a lot there. They probably didn't have much time, so they only uploaded some footnotes of their history, info on the nova-making-thingy, and some random piece of opera they put in for the sake of culture. I think that's why it was railroaded in there. It reminded me of..." Bob stopped, willing himself to stay stoic. But it was hard work. He had killed the only person he had loved in his entire life. Except...  
  
"Hey!" Larb attempted to gain his attention, "HEY! Don't you get all suicidal on me now! I need you alive!" Larb attempted to reconcile him.  
  
"Why?" Bob asked sarcastically, "so you can use the stuff in my head to conquer the universe? Frankly, I'll pass. Shit, I just...NEED somebody now, y'know? Like..." Bob stopped, sure of what admitting it would mean.  
  
"Chak?" Larb sussed, he was going to keep this Irken alive if he had to sweat blood, "listen, if we get out of this alive, I'll make certain that she's there for you." Bob's attention perked up at the sound of her name. His tears suddenly lessened.  
  
"Did she really lead you to me back on Tek's cruiser?" Bob asked, the question had been at the back of his mind ever since it happened.  
  
"No, she didn't," answered Larb, glad that there was something to keep this living weapon still living, "the only reason she made a deal in the first place was to see you. She tricked us as soon as we got here." This made Bob feel better, so she really did care.  
  
"We just need to find her..." Bob began.  
  
"Bob!" yelled a voice from a nearby conduit. Bob and Larb's heads jerked towards it.  
  
"Chak!?" yelled Bob in response, barely believing his luck. He stood up and ran in the direction the voice had come from. Larb had momentarily lost charge of events, and now his project was running away from him.  
  
"Hey! Bob!" shouted Larb after him, "wait! It might be a trap!" Bob ran through the maze of corridors until he eventually came to an adjunct. Out of the shadows in the corner Chak appeared, her face strangely haunted.  
  
"Chak!" Bob said, as if trying to convince himself that he wasn't seeing things,"I'm so glad to see you! How did you get here!? I've got to tell you some...w...what are you doing?" Chak had stepped further out of the shadows to reveal that she was holding a gun, and pointing it straight at Bob.  
  
"Please...please don't say anything," Chak mewed pathetically, "it'll only make this harder..." Chak was pointing the gun purposefully at Bob, retreating in quiet incomprehension. Then Larb entered the adjunct, gun poised.  
  
"Bob! When you're menat to be in my custody you're not meant to-hey!" Larb noticed the figure about to blow a hole through his project and aimed his gun, but Chak noticed him fist and fired, penetrating his arm. Larb let out a shriek and dropped the gun to the floor, and klaxons began sounding in the distance. The security system was obviously fine-tuned to gunshots. Chak turned her attention back to Bob, showing several conflicting emotions on her face alone. Bob could only muster mystified.  
  
"Chak...why are you doing this?" Bob asked.  
  
"I don't want to go back to the dirt, or dead in some chute somewhere," Chak gave as reasons, "I love you, Bob, but I can't be with you. It would mean giving up my life. The only way out of here is death or helping that maniac wrest control of the galaxy. But Tek gave me the option to live. I love you but, please, I don't want to die..." The gun seemed to point downwards several notches as Chak began to sob uncontrollably. Bob stepped forward a few paces to try to comfort her.  
  
"Chak," Bob felt he had to say this, "I love you too..."  
  
"SHUT UP!" Chak yelled through her tears. She screwed her eyes shut in order not to look at the face of the person she loved as she killed him. She squeezed her trigger finger.  
  
A shot rang out.  
  
Chak opened her eyes to see Bob with a look of horror on his face. But he was still intact, and holding Larb's gun, which looked like it had discharged. Confused, she looked down at her clothes to see that they were stained with blood. Chak looked back up at Bob accusingly as she slumped to the floor. Bob similarly slumped to his knees, staring at Chak's lifeless eyes. His tears started up again, but there was little other indication of emotion. His only reason for living was now a lifeless corpse. Yet again, killed by his own hand. But there was no forgetting this, this image was certain to haunt him for the rest of his life. He pointed the gun to his own head to make certain it was a short one.  
  
"I NEED YOU ALIVE, IN CASE YOU FORGOT!" screamed Larb, kicking the gun out of Bob's hand and holding onto his bleeding. Larb leant over and picked up the gun. It ached as he had to pick it up by the arm that now had a gaping hole in it. Bob remained emotionless, staring into nothing. The klaxons were continuing to sound and the sound of armoured feet on metal floors could be heard. Larb, recognizing the need for flight, grabbed onto Bob and disappeared into the nearest shaft...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	25. Hostile Takeover

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Twenty-five: Hostile takeover  
  
Darkness. That was all Bob could see. Oddly enough he was fully conscious at the time. He could see his future laid out in front of him: stuck forgotten and alone in a cell on some research planet, lying in space with a laser wound in his head, either way it would be to the tune of collapsing stars. And the bleakest thing about it was that there'd be no one left who really cared about him. Because he had killed both of them.  
  
This bleak mood suited Larb fine, at least he'd be easy to transport. But his priority for the moment was getting Bob into a ship and getting out of there. Not easy when there seemed to be a heavily-armoured Planet Jacker soldier every ten yards, and all of them specifically searching for him. He clambered out of yet another air duct to find that he was now in one of those heavy-duty elevator shafts. An elevator was descending from the command centre towards his level. He hid back in the air duct but managed to catch a glimpse of the elevator's inhabitants, a brigade of heavily armoured Planet Jackers, and among them an Irken scientist, sticking out like a sore thumb.  
  
"THAT BASTARD AND HIS PINT-SIZE SUPER WEAPON HAVE GOT TO BE ON THIS LEVEL SOMEWHERE!!" Crag yelled from irritation, "FIND THEM!!" Crag was leading the search effort himself, so he was definitely getting desperate. All but three of the Planet Jackers left the elevator. But shortly after the gate shut a shrill cry came from a radio on Crag's person. "WHAT!!" he yelled into it.  
  
"Sir,did you order a change in course?" the voice on the radio asked.  
  
"No, why?" Crag queried back into the radio.  
  
"Because we appear to be turning around into the interior of the star system," the radio informed, "but you didn't order it?"  
  
"No, there's no one..." waves of realisation swept over Crag, "there's no one in the command centre! GET THIS THING BACK UP!" THOSE GUNSHOTS WERE JUST A DIVERSION!!" Crag shut off the radio and a Planet Jacker moved over to the switch panel.  
  
"Tek," Larb muttered out-of-hand. Bob returned from his feeling of bleakness at hearing that name, summoning up as much rage and hate as he thought he could muster. The elevator began it's ascent, and Larb decided to grab onto a railing on the elevator's underside. "Going up!" said Larb. He couldn't help himself. The elevator eventually stopped and Larb climbed out into an adjoining air duct. He caught a glimpse of the Planet Jackers crowding round a door.  
  
"It won't open sir!" declared one of the Planet Jackers, "Someone's locked it from the other side and the controls are fried!"  
  
"GET THAT DOOR OPEN!" ordered Crag, "GET IT OPEN OR I'LL HAVE YOU ALL SHOT!" Larb winced.  
  
"He never had much nerve," Larb said to himself. He continued along the air duct. Seeing as this was the hub of the ship, there should be plenty of...yes! There was an unoccupied escape pod right in front of him. He clambered onto the pod, dragging Bob with him. But Bob was not in the state to just get out of here. Chak was dead, and if he could pin responsibility on anyone but himself, it had to be Tek. She drove Chak over the edge, and if love motivated anything in Bob, it was the will for revenge. Just as Larb hit the escape switch, Bob leaped out of the pod.  
  
"Hey! BOB! NO!" Larb yelled as the door closed on his project, victory rapidly slipping from his grasp, "NOOO! NO! NO! SHIT! MOTHERFUCKING...NO!" Larb sent a shot from his gun into the door to make it open again, then threw the gun at it, then pounded on the door to will it open again. His goal, so close to completion, had now closed on him like the sealed door between him and Bob. Larb screamed and cursed at the door, spiting it out of pure venom, when a sudden jerk from the pod indicated something was wrong. ESCAPE POD LOCKED flashed on a nearby monitor. He wasn't going anywhere anytime soon...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	26. The Descent

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Part Twenty-six: The descent  
  
Bob clambered through shafts and conduits with a single goal in mind. His face was twisted into one of hateful determination. His red eyes turned the colour of blood (human blood, not Irken, which is fairly disturbing in itself), and he would not let anything get in the way of his rage. He slipped past the Planet Jackers desperately trying to find a way through the door to the command centre and entered an air duct that would have been far too small for anyone else but him.  
  
He dropped down on the other side to encounter the body of a Planet Jacker, blood was oozing out of a deep cut along the length of his throat. He looked around and saw two other bodies the same way, and eventually his eyes came to the cold, emotionless figure standing in front of the controls, intently looking at the bright star gradually filling up the display in front of her.  
  
"TEK!" Bob screamed. It was a scream one would have thought incapable to have been emitted from such a small creature. It was a voice that summed up feelings of hatred and eternal loss, the inflections stabbing the air like knives. It got Tek's attention as she spun around and looked upon Bob with those narrow blue eyes of hers. If she had allowed them to show any emotion they would've probably been startled.  
  
"Bob?" Tek asked icily, "Bob! Did you know that I am actually pleased to see you? I was just planning you to be stuck in an locked escape pod while you, Larb, and the rest of Crag's lackeys were incinerated by this star, with myself speeding away in that lone open escape pod over there." Tek indicated towards the said escape pod. Bob wasn't in the mood to look. He WAS in the mood to tear apart her ribcage and pulverise her remains so he stayed glaring at her, seething with hatred. Tek could only raise a grin. The grin didn't seem to imply any feeling behind it.  
  
"But now with you around, I can at least claim some collateral," Tek mentioned, "still, it would have been apt wouldn't it? Strapped and gagged to the back of a chair while your ship headed into the sun, very ironic. But I guess there's no room in the universe for poetry..."  
  
"You're not getting off this ship alive, Tek," Bob spat, genuinely meaning every word, if not especially going so far as knowing HOW. In all his hate, he needed a legitimate plan to kill this psycho. He looked around desperately, and noticed out of the corner of his eye the airlock located next the escape pod. It just might work.  
  
"Somehow I think I MIGHT just live through this one," Tek added sarcastically, drawing a knife from her person and holding it to Bob's neck, "now head to the pod." Bob could do nothing but comply. Any attempt to fight her now would only leave her alive and him dead, not the best way to avenge Chak. So he bided his time as they walked to the pod. Only at the last moment did he suddenly jerk from Tek's grip and hit the rapid decompression switch.  
  
The command bridge became a self-contained hurricane as air rushed out of the airlock. The knife flew out of Tek's hand and embedded itself in the bulkhead. Bob grabbed onto a railing on the wall and Tek flew out of the airlock. But she wasn't finished yet. She grabbed onto Bob's leg in an attempt to at least salvage SOMETHING from this. Bob tried to retain a grip on the railing, but he was too small and Tek's mass added onto the force of the suction meant that he began to slip from the railing.  
  
He attempted to kick away Tek's iron grip from his leg, but his limbs were too small. Fast losing his grip he looked around for an answer, and saw Tek's knife embedded in the bulkhead. Taking one long, suicidal lunge he grabbed the knife and brought it in a straight semi-circle into Tek's hand. Tek let go of Bob's leg and was blown into the depths of space. On her face finally appeared a sign of emotion: despair.  
  
Bob climbed back into the bridge and shut the airlock door. The loss of air was making it hard to breathe, but he was managing. He moved towards the escape pod, but upon looking back at the controls a devious idea came to him...  
  
"Come on, Larb," Larb said to himself as he pulled on the machinery inside the escape pod, blood oozing from his arm under the strain, "you were an Invader, you're meant to be GOOD at this! Come on you fucking piece of-AGH!" The brief cry came as his fingers were momentarily trapped inside the machinery as they sprang to life. Larb stumbled back into the pod, nursing his figures as it finally seperated from the ship.  
  
He saw the ship, towing behind it Stark 1-27 and half a million soldiers, moving towards the sun in the centre. He could also barely make out another escape pod moving away in the opposite direction to him. He hoped he was happy, sarcastically...  
  
Just as the door opened with a spark of laser fire, Crag immediately rushed through the door towards the controls. He punched in co-ordinates with a desperation which comes from death being the punishment for getting this wrong. Thrusters started up and Crag could see the sun ceasing to grow, and eventually shrinking in the monitor.  
  
Crag breathed a sigh of relief. He may have lost his project and maybe even his army, but he still had his life. It was then that he looked down and noticed a smaller monitor with a countdown on it. He got this sudden, sinking feeling.  
  
...3...2...1...FUSION INHIBITION IN PROCESS.  
  
Crag looked up to see a beam being emanated from the ship into the star in front of him. Within seconds he was blinded by a brilliant light from the star, which only kept getting brighter as it neared the ship. Instead of recoiling, Crag only stood wide-eyed, a small tear running down his cheek as the shockwave hit and incinerated the bridge. It continued on to vaporise Crag's ship, Crag's army, and even Stark 1-27 along with it. And in the distance was an escape pod, cruising gently out of reach of the blast...  
  
TO BE CONCLUDED... 


	27. Epilogue: His Own Man...

THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!  
  
Epilogue: His own man...  
  
A figure was walking along at a slow pace on the surface of the planet. It wasn't an especially desert planet, but it's vegetation was pretty sparse, and the footpath the figure was walking along was baking hot from the sun. But the figure had learned his lessons from before, and carried with him heat-reflective clothes, a large stockpile of fluids and, perhaps most importantly, an idea of where he wanted to go. If anyone ever asked him that directly, the answer would always be the same: 'somewhere new'.  
  
He took his time, stopping every once in a while to admire the view. In the distance he looked upon a mountain range that bent and curled in strangely angular shapes that could be twisted by any imagination into all kinds of gods and monsters. The tips were a strange shade of purple that in the right light could look like the blood of some species or another. The locals called them 'the army of the gods'. Bob lived for these moments.  
  
He was always on the move, using his technical skills to earn his keep as far as food or travel arrangements were concerned. He always used an alternative name, choosing them on the spot depending on his mood at the time, and tried not to show his face too often. AS far as the authorities knew, he might have died with the rest of the planet, Larb's vague testimonial of a second escape pod being the only indication that he was still alive. But he wasn't taking any chances. Destroying an entire research base and setting back Irken-Planet Jacker relations for decades to come was not something the Irken elite would easily forget.  
  
So Larb had discovered, his punishment had been cruel and unusual. The Tallest ordered that Vort be given independance, and all its sofa-producing facilities stripped from the surface, leaving the natives as bitter and heavily-armed as possible. They then sent Larb to conquer it all over again. Apparently he burst into tears in front of the Tallest. Bob had seen it on a giant monitor in a crowd on some far off planet and couldn't help laughing his ass off at Larb's misfortune.  
  
Bob smiled when he thought of this memory. Ever since the events surrounding the Krakin mind-probe, which was about six months ago now, he had spent every waking moment of his life to collect memories like this. His life before then had been one, long, boring work shift full of eternal dullness and despair. His one attempt to break out of it had ended so tragically that he had closed off the memory of it, as well as any possibility of escape.   
Lenn had died because she had been forced back into subserviance. Chak had died the same way. Bob owed it to them, to their memories, to himself, to NEVER fall into that trap again. If the events six months ago had given him anything, it was a second chance. A chance to finally go out and see the universe. And no one would stand in his way.  
  
The sun began setting behind the mountain range. The purple tips of the mountains split the light in such a way that they lit up the whole sky in a spectacular multicolour display. The colours swerved and struck each other as if a battle was going on in the heavens. The army of the gods. Bob stood there, recording this memory in his head, amongst the grief and the pain and the plans for superweapons, sighed a deep sigh, and turned back towards the footpath in search of more memories...  
  
THE END  
  
Written by Rasputin  
  
All characters still alive at the end of this story (C) Nickelodean and Jhnen Vasquez 


End file.
